Pandora's Box
by TouGod
Summary: When things go bad on Earth and only get worse, Harry decides to try and fix things, but things don't go to plan. Can Harry learn to survive after opening Pandora's Box?
1. Journey's Beginning

Ok, usual disclaimer applies. I don't own anything but what I create. I certainly don't own Harry Potter and while it's my favorite movie now, I don't own Avatar either. I had this idea for a fic while watching Avatar for the second time, so here we go!

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In a flash of clashing lights, it was all over. The man, no, the creature that had terrorized the Wizarding world for decades was no more, destroyed forever by a young man, barely 18 years old, named Harry Potter. However, this victory came at a high price… his magic. A curse created by Voldemort locked it away deep within him while altering his magic core so that even if he unlocked his magic he could never again use it. There was no cure, no counter curse, no hope for him at all. When the magical world found out that their savior was no more powerful than a squib, they turned on him, shunning him wherever he went. He was barely able to hold onto his family assets and money when the Ministry of Magic tried to seize all that he had in an attempt to settle its debts with his money, but with the help of the Goblins, they were foiled. No one expected a powerless opponent to beat them, but he did.

Ironically, the final battle also brought about the end of the Wizarding world, as the destruction and death that came from Voldemort's forces and the final duel between him and Harry was too much to hide. Despite the best attempts of the combined forces of the magical communities, word spread and evidence was found. When the regular humans found out that there was an entire community hidden all around the world that had been using magic to hide their existence from them while manipulating events and memories without care of consequences, the reaction was huge. Within two years, 90% of the Purebloods in the world were wiped out. Families that went back a thousand years were destroyed in only a few short months while the major corporations that had revealed the Wizarding world made trillions of dollars off of propaganda and selling fear and solutions. After only ten years, the Wizarding world was driven to the brink of destruction and almost all the major schooling institutions were destroyed and magic was once again being taught from Master to Apprentice and in families, people hiding that they were magical even from their closest friends on fear of death. The Muggle-Born survived the best, while Half-Bloods managed to adapt and survive fairly well. The pride and arrogance of the Purebloods was their undoing, as they refused to back down and fade into the shadows. Instead, they believed that the magic in their blood would allow them to prevail over superior technology and weapons. They died in staggering amounts of numbers. The amount of deaths put the medieval witch hunts to shame, and this time they were deadly accurate in their hunting of magical beings. Forests were already rare, having been harvested in massive amounts by greedy corporations, and when they found the pure and untouched forests in the magical world the forests didn't last long. After that it was metals, stone, anything of value that the major corporations could find.

Harry could count his remaining friends and supporters on one hand, as everyone seemed to be blaming him for the downfall of the Wizarding world. One year into the war between wizards and normal humans, Harry found the solution to everything, including his lack of magic. The problem was finding someone in a position to help him, but lucky for him, he only needed one. After graduation, Hermione Granger got a job with the Department of Mysteries as a researcher and Harry knew he could count on her to help him.

"Wait, you want to do what?" Hermione was shocked into silence as Harry explained his plan. They were currently in the Veil room, the one room that was almost always empty, thus assuring them privacy in a time of war.

"I need to go back in time, to fourth year and stop Voldemort from coming back. I know where he'll be, I know what he's going to do, and if I can stop him, then everything will change for the better. I know it!"

Hermione's mouth moved, but no sound came out. She shook her head and tried to formulate a coherent sentence. "Harry, what you're planning will cause a paradox! If you change time, then you'll die!"

Harry's eyes were set, his determination showing in the set of his jaw, and Hermione knew that there was no way she could change his mind. "If it works, then I don't care. If I can stop him then, then none of this will happen," Harry was fervent in his belief that he could change everything, to set things right.

Hermione sighed as she knew that he was right, and that he was the only one who would be able to change everything. No one had the intel that he did, and if she didn't help him, then he was just going to go off and do it himself anyway, probably getting himself killed in the mean time. "Alright, Harry, I know you won't stop, so I'll help you. But if this turns into a dead end, promise me you won't try to go off and do this on your own. If I can't figure it out, you won't be able to."

Harry readily agreed, knowing that she wasn't being prideful, only stating a truth. She was the brains of the group, he was simply the one that got things done. They spent a total of a year working on his plan, making good use of the resources available to her as an Unspeakable. It all boiled down to a ritual, one which would normally use the Wizard's core to fuel the spell, but since his core had been altered, Hermione came up with a tablet that would both fuel the spell and at the same time direct it. They decided to use the Veil room to perform the ritual as it formed a natural nexus of magic which would almost guarantee the ritual's success.

"Well, I guess this is it," Harry said as he held the tablet, dressed in his finest robes with his wand strapped to his forearm. No one needed to know that he couldn't use it, but they would ask questions if he showed up with no wand.

"Harry, please, promise me that you won't screw this up. Do it or I won't start the spell," Hermione said with tears in her eyes. Harry could see her wand hand shaking as she tried to stay strong. He put the tablet down before walking over to her and pulled her into a hug, rocking her softly as she cried into her chest.

"Hermione, I don't know what will happen, I don't even know if this will work, but I can't just stand around and do nothing while our world crumbles around us. But I promise you, I will never give up," Harry told her softly, wiping away her tears as she looked up at him, his words giving her hope. Acting on impulse, Harry leaned down and captured her lips with his in a heartfelt kiss. Her arms came up around his neck, pulling him down so that she could kiss him fully, leaving the both of them breathless at the end.

"Don't screw this up, Harry," Hermione whispered before pulling away and getting into her position at the bottom of a ritual circle, waiting for him to get into the center of it. When he picked up the tablet and stepped into the center of the circle, she raised her wand and started chanting a long and complicated spell. With a rush of energy and light that flowed out of her wand and into the circle, their eyes met and she smiled at him and mouthed 'I love you' before his world went white.

When Harry came to, he found himself in the center of a crumbling ruin, with a broken Veil in the center of the room, the tablet he had been holding was nothing more than dust at his feet. That clued him into the fact that something had gone terribly wrong, so he took off his robes, revealing normal Muggle clothing of a black t-shirt, blue jeans, and a pair of white trainers. A muttered command word caused his wand holster to turn invisible, his 17th birthday present from Hermione.

"Hello? Anyone here?"

His voice echoed around the chamber, disturbing some rocks that fell to the ground. Cautiously, Harry pulled a combat knife from a sheath on his belt, having learned knife fighting during the war against Voldemort and then mastering it after he lost his magic. His knife was made by the Dwarves, which had irked his Goblin allies. Traveling through the ruins of the Department of Mysteries only increased the bad feeling he had, as everywhere he went showed signs of either decay or battle. He even came across a skeleton at one point, a bullet hole in the skull showing how that person had died.

"What happened here? What the bloody hell is going on?" No one answered his questions.

Harry spent an hour making his way out of the Ministry, having to walk the stairs as the elevators had been destroyed, the shafts full of rubble. He finally found his way to the atrium, and found that the entire complex was full of rubble from the roof collapsing, showing a way out but at the same time making his heart feel like lead.

"Somehow, I don't think this is the past," Harry muttered as he sheathed his knife and climbed out of the atrium. When he got out, he found himself in the middle of a futuristic version of the London he had known, with floating trains going by and black angry clouds overhead, as well as people were walking around with masks on their faces. After only a few minutes of walking, he realized why almost everyone had masks on: it hurt to breathe in the air, as if it were toxic. Harry jogged the mile to where the Leaky Cauldren was and found the building more or less the same, but when he walked in, he found it abandoned as well, with the tables and bar falling apart.

"Merlin, this is horrible. Please, let the bank still be there," Harry prayed as he walked through the entrance to Diagon Ally. There, glistening white was his only ray of hope, Gringott's Bank. Harry ran all the way down the Ally, the poor air making his head spin as he approached the steps but he didn't care. All he cared about was finding answers to the nightmare he had found himself in. Praying to whoever was listening, Harry knocked on the doors to the bank. After a few minutes, he nearly gave up hope when the door slowly opened to reveal an elderly Goblin.

"Who are you? How did you get here?" it demanded as two Goblin guards came out and hauled him inside the bank, which to his immense relief hadn't changed at all. "Answer me, human!"

"My name is Harry Potter," Harry replied as they forced him to sit on the ground at spear point.

"Impossible!" the Goblin scoffed. "Harry Potter died ages ago. Now, who are you and how did you find us?"

Harry's heart sank at the Goblin's words, his worst fears being confirmed that instead of going back in time, he had been sent far into the future. Harry studied the Goblin in front of him as something about him was familiar. Finally, he realized what it was. The Goblin in front of him was Griphook, his old account manager and friend, simply much older. "I'm telling you the truth, Griphook, I'm Harry Potter." With that, Harry lifted his bangs to show his famous scar, which was still visible despite lightening considerably after Voldemort's death.

The guards next to him shifted nervously as Griphook took a step back in shock. "How is this possible? Hermione Granger reported that you died in an accident in the Department of Mysteries."

"We were working on a solution to the war…" With that, Harry launched into an explanation of all that had happened, telling Griphook everything up to him coming to the bank. "Griphook, what day is it? What year?"

Griphook looked to the guards with a reluctant look before turning back to Harry. "It is July 17th, 2142, Mr. Potter. You are over 140 years into the future." Harry's eyes dropped to his hands as Griphook said the words that sealed his fate. "I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but the Wizarding world officially ended over a century ago after we lost the war against the normal humans. Almost all magical beings were destroyed by the war, with only the strongest and most adaptable surviving. The dragons were completely wiped out, down to the last egg."

A lone tear escaped Harry's tight control on his emotions, which he quickly wiped away. He had promised Hermione that he wouldn't screw this up, and while things were already far beyond his control, he was going to make the best of the situation, even though all he wanted was to curl up and die. He bowed and knelt before Griphook. "Master Griphook, I humbly beg your help."

Griphook's eyes widened in surprise at the sudden turnaround in his old friend. Harry had seemed on the verge of collapse and yet was now kneeling before him asking for help. "Ask it and it shall be done, Lord Potter."

Harry looked up at the Goblin from his kneeling position. "I need to survive in this new world I find myself. Can you help me?"

Griphook thought for a minute before barking some orders to one of the guards in Gobblygook, sending him running across the empty lobby and through one of the many doors. He then turned back to Harry. "Come, Mr. Potter, I have a few ideas on how to get you set up here, but I warn you, it won't be pleasant."

Griphook's idea of 'not pleasant' turned out to be near torture for Harry as he had been subjected to a device that had been created long ago to transfer knowledge, usually in the case that a Master died before he could teach his apprentice everything, or a person got adopted into a family and needed to know certain things, but the device had been outlawed by the Ministry as a dark object, and most known copies had long been destroyed even before Harry's birth. Using it had given Harry enough modern knowledge to get around and get into school, which Griphook was able to set up using some of his contacts and lot of money. Harry decided for his own sake not to ask how the Goblins had acquired the knowledge that he had been given, choosing to not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Harry quickly caught up to other student his age, getting a high school diploma and then accepted into a high end college where he found he had a talent for languages and cultures. He quickly mastered ten languages within a couple years, with another five the next two years. While he could no longer use his magic, it was still within him, showing up with a passive form of legillimency that worked like empathy and his ability to talk to snakes, both of which probably helped with learning other languages. While Harry studied and made leaps and bound in the real world, he kept in touch with Griphook, both of them helping the other when needed.

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Harry sighed as he threw a data pad into his briefcase, having finished his report on a rare wall of text that he managed to decipher. The corporation that he worked for wanted to know if anything of value could be found before they destroyed the ruins the wall was found in. There was a good market for historical artifacts and ancient stones with funny markings on them. It disgusted him at how low humanity had sunk, destroying their world just to make a few bucks and then spreading out to the stars to repeat the cycle. He had been hearing stories of a world called Pandora that was being mined for an extremely rare ore called unobtainium. Well, technically it was a moon, but it was almost as big as Earth, and it had a similar yet different environment. But its true value was thought to lay in its forests and animal life, or at least that's what the scientific community thought, while everyone else only saw the money in the ground. Unobtainium was a super conductive material that was extremely rare and unbelievably useful, thus making it extremely expensive and desired.

Harry shook his head to rid himself of his depressing thoughts and reached around the side of his bed and loosed a hidden panel, revealing his old holly wand. He slowly picked it up and held it reverently, hoping as he had for years that he would feel the familiar rush of warmth and energy that came from his magic. But as he had been for four years, he was disappointed once again as it was just a stick in his hands, with no more reaction for him than any other non-magical person. A loud beep from a monitor on the wall broke him from his thoughts and he quickly hid the wand back in its hiding place.

"Activate," Harry said as he stood and approached the screen. With a crackle and buzz, the screen came to life to reveal an attractive middle-aged Caucasian woman with shoulder length light brown hair and slight crow's feet around her eyes.

"Dr. Augustine! Well, this is a surprise. Aren't you supposed to be on Pandora?" Harry said in surprise as he sat down at the desk in front of the monitor. Grace Augustine was a legend in scientific circles in botany, physiology, and various other methods of study. He had met her when he attended a lecture of hers a few years back at Stanford, right before she left to go to Pandora, and they had struck up a friendship. In fact, when she was chosen to head a scientific research mission on Pandora, she had approached him to see if he was interested in going with her, but he had declined. He hadn't been ready to leave Earth then, as he had only been in school for a short time and wanted to work on his education.

"Who'd you think it was, numbnuts?" Grace said with a smirk. "I'm using the corporation's link-up with Earth to do some recruiting. And this time, I'm not accepting no for an answer, Brit."

Harry chuckled at her playful barbs at him. "What makes you think I'll say yes? I turned you down once, after all. Don't you Yanks ever give up? What use is a linguist on a wild world?"

"Look, Harry, things have changed. We need you here. There is a native humanoid species here called the Na'vi, and you would be a great asset to the team," Grace told him seriously, all humor disappearing. Harry could tell that she had practiced that speech a few times before. "Also, there is a project here that I think you'd be very interested in, but I can't go into details. I'm sending you a data package with more information. Promise me that you'll think about it?"

"I promise to think about it, but I won't promise anything else, Grace."

"Great," Grace said, humor returning to her eyes. "So I'll see you out here once you realize that there's only one real choice and get your scrawny ass onto a transport."

"You've got a lot of confidence that I'll say yes. Don't forget that I've got a contract here for five more years to worry about," Harry warned her.

"Oh, I'm not worried about that. You'll see what I mean when you read the data I've just sent you. Now get some sleep, you look like crap."

"Love you too, Doc," Harry said with a smirk as he gave her a sloppy two finger salute and disconnected the call. After having to deal with Ron for eight years, plus every other crazy person in the magical world along with Voldemort, Grace was easy for him to handle, which couldn't be said for most other people. She had a wicked reputation which had been rightfully earned for being stand-offish, rude, and just plain irritable.

Sure enough, as Harry checked his inbox, there was a massive data file waiting for him to download. After he opened it, the first few pages explained most of what Dr. Augustine couldn't, and once he had read half of the file, he knew that she was right. There was only one choice he could make. He was going to Pandora.

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The flight to Pandora was hell. Four years in cryo aboard a special transport meant only for scientists and other non-military personal left him irritable and with a major migraine. Checking his watch, he found that it was July 31st, his 27th birthday, but since you never counted years in Cryo, he was basically only 23. He was easily one of the youngest people on the transport, most of the others being in their mid to late thirties, but he knew that he had already experienced more than most people do in their entire lives. The ship he had been sent out on was smaller than the normal transports, but with normal sized engines. With less cryo units, more power could be directed to the engines, which decreased the time spent in transit drastically. Silently wishing for an anti-hangover potion to clear his head, or at least some aspirin, Harry floated over to his locker to change out of his cryo clothes and into normal clothing.

Feeling a little more refreshed after changing clothes and eating the first breakfast his body had gotten in two years, even if it was space food, Harry made his way through the orbiting space station to the shuttle that would take them down to the planet's surface. This transport was huge and triangular shaped, white on black paint giving it an old time feel, harkening back to the old space shuttles of Earth history. Supplies would be sent down with them, along with soldiers that had been forced to make a six year journey and had just arrived.

"Alright, you limp-dicked sissies, listen up! Once you get down to the planet's surface, head into the complex and follow your guide to the mess hall where you'll get a pep talk by yours truly," a scarred military man shouted out, his attitude and tone telling Harry all he needed to know about the man: You did things his way or he'd shoot you himself, or maybe throw you out an airlock, whichever he felt in the mood for at the time. The markings on his uniform told that he was a Colonel.

"Bloody military, always pushing people around," Harry muttered under his breath, but apparently the Colonel had better ears than he thought as he turned around and stalked over to Harry.

"What's your name, boy?"

"Potter, Harry Potter."

"Well, listen up good, Potter, as I'm only going to say this once. I run the show around here, and the only reason you're seeing me now instead of down at the base is that I was 'requested' to escort you pansies all the way. So if you give me any lip, I'll make you wish you were never born, you got me?" the Colonel growled, the lights making his scars stand out even more, giving him a devilish look.

"Whatever you say…sir," Harry drawled, doing a passable imitation of Draco's signature drawl. He had just met the man and he already didn't like him. He reminded him too much of a combination of Mad-Eye and Snape, with a little Lucious thrown into the mix. Dangerous, psychotic, and absolutely willing to follow through on his threats.

The Colonel scoffed at him and turned away. "Alright, you bird brains, grab your gear and head to the transport. We roll out in ten minutes."

"Ah, don't mind him. He's always like that. Colonel Quaritch doesn't really like anyone that isn't military."

Harry turned and found himself looking at an attractive woman with a dark skin tone, like she had a dark tan, with long black hair and aviator glasses on wearing a pilot's uniform. "He's got a long way to go before he can get me riled up." Harry then held out his hand. "Harry Potter."

The woman gave him a smirk and shook his hand. "Name's Trudy Chacon. I'm on transport duty for now, but I also fly the gunships down there, too."

"Gunships?"

"Yeah, didn't you read your brief before coming out here?" Trudy told him with a smirk. "We aren't the only things flyin' around down there, and we aint the biggest either. Compared to some of the things down there, we may as well be ants or squirrels. Gunships just even the odds a bit."

"Well, now that I'm here, the odds are in our favor," Harry told her, returning the smirk as he could feel a fast friendship forming between him and the spunky pilot.

"In your dreams, geek," Trudy replied with a laugh as she walked towards the transport. Harry grabbed his pack and shouldered it before following after her.

Life on Pandora was made up of various levels of extremes. Research was done behind layers of steel, bulletproof glass, and thick, high walls surrounding the base. The very air was toxic to humans, with death occurring after only four minutes without a rebreather. Yet the planet was beautiful, often reminding Harry of the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, as it too was full of strange creatures that often wanted to kill you. His first few months there were fairly simple, just learning the ropes and getting to know people. His knowledge of languages and cultures was nearly useless except for mediating between the scientists and the military personal when things got too tense. But he was picking up some skills from the other scientists while impressing some of the Marines with his combat skills and training. Finally, a break came from the monotony when Grace pulled him aside while he was out in the training yard and took him to a section of the base that he hadn't been given clearance to go to before.

"Alright, I'm not going to beat around the bush. The real reason I brought you out here is that there is a program that we've been working on in order to better learn about the natives and get their cooperation with things," she told him while they stood in front of a door that had warning signs painted all over. "It's called the Avatar project and during your physical before coming out here, two things were done. One was that they scanned your brainwaves, and two was that they took a sample of your DNA. Both were done to see if you weren't able to join, but when I saw the results, well, I took the liberty of signing you up."

"Bloody hell, Grace, I think that's the most I've heard you say since that last lecture a few years ago," Harry said with a curious expression before dodging a fist to his arm. "Ok, so you signed me up for a mysterious program, without telling me about it, and it has something to do with my mind. Why am I not surprised?"

"Look, Potter, this project could be the key to so many breakthroughs you can't even begin to understand, and while we've made progress, it's been slow. I need you out there with me. You're a people person, able to get almost anyone to like you like I've never seen before! Hell, the creation of the Avatars was a huge step forward!"

"Alright, alright, I get the picture. Now what the hell _is_ an Avatar?" Harry said while holding his hands up in a placating gesture. The data packet that she had sent him had a lot missing or obscured for security reasons.

Grace used a security card to open the door, leading him into a lab with long circular tubes placed horizontally, with giant humanoid figures lying inside each one. Some looked fully formed while others looked like infants. The ones that looked fully grown were around nine to ten feet tall, lithely built yet still muscular, with a long tail and a long, black ponytail. Their skin was blue with various different patterns on their skin created with lighter blue and turquoise colors, all natural and unique like fingerprints. Harry's jaw dropped as he looked at a row of three tubes, a buzz in his bones leading him to the furthest tube where he saw an Avatar that looked a lot like him.

"Grace, what is going on?" Harry asked softly as he heard her walk up behind him.

"These are the Avatars, Harry," she told him gently, knowing how unexpected this was for him. "I knew that this could be a new start for you, and you've performed beyond our best expectations these few months."

Harry realized then that many of the 'tests' and exercises that he had been given since he had arrived had all been preparing him for something bigger, and now he knew just what that was. But the way she had phrased her response made him wary. "Can I talk to you in private?" Harry asked as he grabbed her arm and pulled her back out into the hall and into a room he knew would be empty and locked the door.

"What's wrong with you, Potter?"

"You know." It wasn't a question, it wasn't an accusation, it was merely a statement. "I don't know how you know, but you do."

Grace nodded, actually looking a little nervous. She turned and looked out a window in the room that was facing the forest. "When I met you, I was shocked to find that you're name was Harry Potter, as I had grown up hearing stories from my great-grandmother about a brave young man by the same name that had stood up against a mad man, sacrificing almost everything to save his friends. So I talked to you, got to know you, and I finally realized that you and he were the same person. What clinched it for me was your scar."

"Who was your great-grandmother?" Harry asked, both desperate to know and afraid of the answer. "Did I know her well?"

"You would remember her as Hermione Granger, your best friend," Grace said with a sad smile, turning to look at him from over her shoulder before facing him completely. "She never got over you, but eventually she married an American banker in order to escape the war between the magical world and the normal humans. She died about a year before we met at Stanford. I'm sorry, Harry, I really am, but you had to know why I did what I did."

Harry leaned against the wall before slumping to the ground. He had already known that Hermione had escaped the war, but the Goblins had lost track of her as they had been forced underground to survive, but now he knew exactly what had happened and it closed the door on that part of his life.

"So now what? What happens now?"

With that, like a switch flipped, Grace smirked at him. "Now, nancy boy, we go get you set up in the Avatar driver quarters. So get up, stop moping around, and follow me."

* * *

Ok, this is un-beta'd, so if anyone would like to try their hand at being my beta, let me know, but you need to have a firm grasp of Harry Potter and Avatar, and be willing to bounce ideas back and forth with me, so don't be a shy person either. Please review if you read this and give me any suggestions on how to make it better if you feel it doesn't flow right. Also, I'm taking suggestions for later chapters too, though I have several things that I will and will not do, it's just how I have it planned out in my head.


	2. Link

**Ok, so again, in case no one got the message last time, I own nothing but what I create. I was a bit disappointed with the amount of reviews compared to the story alerts, but I suppose that's natural considering how new this category is. Oh, and Grace may be a little ooc, but in the movie, she was world-weary and troubled by a certain event that plays a crucial role in the plot of this story, while this takes place before said event. Anyway, on with the story.**

**Big thanks to Nug for beta'ing this chapter.**

Link

After Grace got him set up, Harry was taken to the link center to go through initialization. His Avatar had been grown while he was in cryo on the trip out and had only recently fully matured. So along with several other 'drivers', he would be entering the Avatar program with several tests to make sure the Avatar and the link with it was working properly.

"So, what now?" Harry asked as Grace led him to an empty link chamber, a machine that looked like the cross between a coffin and a MRI.

"Didn't you learn anything, newbie? You go into the link and empty your mind. That's what all that meditation was for," Grace told him as she smoked a cigarette, the smoke drifting behind her as they walked.

"And the mind numbing tests, lab time, and Na'vi language drills?" Harry asked with an exasperated sigh, coughing softly as he waved the smoke out of his face and shifted his walking so that he was no longer directly behind her.

"That was for my amusement," came the reply from Grace.

Harry groaned as Grace opened one of the link units, slowly getting used to the fact that his friend was either insane or trying to drive him insane. She smiled slightly at his frustration. "Harry, you have one of the best minds, literally, that I have ever seen. Your neural connection rate and brainwaves are amazing. Now I'll be going in too, so once you finish the tests we have set up, I'll show you around."

With that, Grace left him at the link chamber and walked over to another link unit and set it up before going inside. One of the researchers named Max came over to Harry and started showing him how to set up his unit.

"Well, I thought I had seen everything since coming out here, but you must have some sort of magic to get Grace to loosen up like that," Max told him as he set up the link, his back being towards Harry preventing Max from seeing Harry tense up and then relax.

"I guess I'm just lucky like that," Harry mumbled as his heart rate returned to normal from his scare. This last thing he needed was someone finding out just who he was. The things that he had read about when finding out what had happened during the magic wars made him shudder in disgust and fear of it happening to him.

"Well, I hope whatever luck you've got stays with you, as you're going to need it here," Max said as he looked to one of the scientists in the center of the room where a raised section housed most of the computers and monitors that they used to keep an eye on the vitals of those in the link units. The rest of the room was circular with the coffin like link units along the outside of the room, all of them with the head of the chambers facing the wall and the feet facing the center of the room. A bookish blonde gave him a thumbs-up and he turned back to Harry with a smile.

"Everything set up right?" Harry guessed from the signal and smile.

"Yup, we're all ready to go for your first run. By the way, I was wondering just how many languages you know."

Harry smiled back at Max as he opened up the lid of the unit, inwardly glad he wasn't claustrophobic. "I'm fluent in twelve, but I know another four that I'm passable in," Harry replied as he slid into the unit, marveling at the gel interior that conformed to his body. "Wicked."

"Well, I guess soon enough you'll add another to your list," Max said as he pushed Harry down and closed the biometric sensor frame onto his body, lining up his head with the sensors. "Now, put those mental exercises to use and clear your mind. Can you handle that, magic man?"

Harry smiled at the nickname, the irony striking him. "No problem, mate."

With that, Max closed the lid and Harry felt the chamber slide back into the unit, the soft whirring sound helping to lull his mind and clear his thoughts. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, his Occlumency exercises coming in handy. Harry slowly felt his mind slide down a pathway he had never had before, which was unnerving as his mind had been shielded and mapped out for years, Harry having explored every inch of his mind during his mastering of Occlumency. With a long tunnel of mental lights and energy, Harry felt his mind leave his body and travel along a set pathway into another vessel, his mind overlapping perfectly with an empty mind that became his own.

As if coming out of a deep sleep, Harry slowly opened his eyes, the world around him a blur of lights and dark shapes before coming into focus, revealing two of the medical team that would help him with the initializing tests. They had to make sure that there were no defects with the Avatar, and that his motor controls and other sensitive functions were working properly. As his vision cleared, Harry lifted his hands and looked at them closely, noting the way that light reflected off the unique patterns on his skin, making his very skin a work of art.

"Bloody wicked," Harry muttered, noting that his voice was a little deeper than normal, a little more animalistic, probably caused by the difference in vocal chords.

"Ok, Harry, let's do this by the book. I need you to sit up slowly and tell me if you notice anything that feels wrong," one of the techs said, drawing Harry's attention to him. Harry's eyes narrowed as he analyzed the man, noticing just how small he looked to him, reminding him of dealing with the Goblins. However, his eyes picked up on uncountable small details, his ears twitched as they took in the man's words, and his nose was picking up new scents and his mind was going into a slight overdrive trying to handle all this new information. "Harry?"

"Yeah, sorry, it's just a lot to take in," Harry said as he slowly sat up, wobbling a bit when he got upright.

"That's what they all say," said the other medical technician with a chuckle. He was promptly swatted on the back of his head.

"Shut up, Jones," said the first tech with a long suffering sigh. "Now, Harry, we need to start on the motor control tests. I need you to touch your thumb to each of your fingers. Good. Now..."

Harry sighed as he started doing the tests, moving as they told him, standing only to be told to sit again and then repeat the exercise, until he started getting frustrated. "Ok, are we done yet? Because if we aren't that's too bad," Harry told them as he stood up and started pulling the sensors from his body that had been monitoring his vitals.

"Whoa, whoa Harry! You can't just do that! We still have tests to do," said Jones as he backed away from Harry as cords went flying around the area as Harry ripped them off.

"Well that's just too bad. I can't stand hospitals and this isn't any better. I need to get some fresh air," Harry said as he looked around for any clothes they may have left out for him. He spotted a pair of Na'vi sized pants and a simple t-shirt and grabbed them as he got unsteadily to his feet as the medical team scrambled around, trying to contain him. "Sedate him," one of the techs in the control room shouted, causing Harry to turn his attention back to the team in time to catch the arm of Jones, who was attempting to blindside him with a syringe full of sedatives.

A low growl came from his throat as Harry looked down at the man in front of him, realizing for the first time just how much more powerful the Na'vi were physically compared to humans as he effortlessly held the man's arm in place.

"Now that wasn't very nice," Harry said smoothly, his tail lashing around behind him showing his anger. "So, if things don't go just your way, you choose to react this way?"

"What do you expect us to do?" Jones hissed, from between teeth gritted in pain from Harry's tight grip on his arm as he pulled with all his strength, trying in vain to free himself. "Just let you do whatever the hell you want?"

Harry turned to look up at the control room window that over looked the observation room and saw Max with a data screen. "I think that I've shown that my Avatar is working perfectly, so why don't we forgo any more useless tests so I can get out of here."

"Alright, Harry, you've made your point. Stand down everyone; we can pick back up where we left off tomorrow. Uh, Harry, can you let Jones go now?" Max said as he wrote down some notes.

Harry gave Jones one last glare before letting go of the man's arm, causing him to stumble away while holding his aching arm. "You should get that looked at," Harry told him cheekily before turning and slipping on the pants he had grabbed, his tail poking through a convenient hole made just for it. He eagerly ripped the medical gown off and pulled on a simple red t-shirt. Dressed except for shoes, Harry opened the door leading to the airlock, which he opened as well, which led him out into a courtyard with a basketball court right next to the building.

Harry stopped and took a deep, unfiltered breath of Pandorian air, closing his eyes and relishing the feel of the sun on his skin, the wind blowing across his face, and the grass beneath his bare feet. It had literally been years since he had last been able to do this, even back on Earth he hadn't been able to just stand in the sun and take it all in, not since before the final battle with Voldemort. Harry let his eyes gradually open and he took a look at his surroundings, noticing with amusement that the basketball court had been created to Na'vi proportions.

"Amazing isn't it?" Grace asked from next to him, but he had felt her come up beside him, his senses of smell and sound operating at levels that his human body could never achieve. "Just wait until you eat something, then you'll see some real sparks."

"They are so different from us, aren't they? Their senses are so acute, so refined. I mean, I can see every blade of grass and can smell so many different scents, most of them I don't even have a name for yet," Harry told her as he looked at her avatar, and he had to remember to breath. She had a toned body with a flat, muscular stomach which was highlighted by her tight t-shirt and shorts. Her Avatar had about the same sized breasts that her human body did, but they were perfectly proportioned to her body. All in all, she was magnificent.

"Ok, Harry, you can stop staring any time now," said Grace with a chuckle and slight shove, knocking him off balance.

"Sorry," Harry mumbled as he looked away, a brooding look on his face. "You just remind me a lot of Hermione at times. You and she share a lot of traits."

"Ah shit, Harry, I forgot. This is all so new to you, and I'm not making it any better," Grace told him with a wince, not used to apologizing or feeling bad about her actions. Harry just shrugged and gave her a sheepish grin. "Anyway, they told me about your little outburst in there. You know that we have to do our jobs, right?"

"I'm a linguist, not a biologist or a doctor. Patience was never one of my strong points," Harry told her with another shrug as he started walking around, getting used to his new body. A short ways away, Harry spotted an obstacle course and made a mental note to get to know that course very well.

"So Grandma always told me," Grace replied with a smile as she walked next to him, matching his gait easily.

"Grace, I think it's time you told me just why you brought me out here, don't you? You have a dozen people in there that are fluent in Na'vi, so why am I here?"

"You read in the file I sent you that I created a school here, right?" When Harry nodded, she went on. "Well, the Na'vi have been learning extremely well, and I found myself in need of an assistant for the school, and seeing as you have this way with people, you were my first pick for the job."

"You mean that people either love me or hate me, with no middle ground in between?"

"Yeah, that would be it."

"Lovely," Harry muttered as they walked around the courtyard and into a garden full of alien fruits and vegetables. Behind them, the other new Avatars made their way out of observation rooms and were shown around the area. "So you brought me half way across the galaxy to become a school teacher, when I'm not really all that good at teaching?"

Grace chuckled, causing Harry to look at her with suspicion. "Harry, some of Gran's favorite stories were about you teaching that resistance group in your fourth year. I think it was called the 'DH' or something like that."

"The DA, actually," Harry corrected her automatically, shaking his head in amusement. Even a century after the fact, Hermione had still been proud of what they had created together. "I only did what was needed. Since no one else was willing to stand up to Umbridge, I did. But I wasn't all that great of a teacher."

"Whatever, Potter. Forgive me if I take my Gran's word over yours. You taught those kids how to survive, all I'm asking is that you teach these kids English. Is that too much to ask?" The sarcasm in Grace's voice had Harry rolling his eyes, but agreeing with her anyway. When she put it that way, how could he resist?

"Alright, doc, you win. So what should I expect from these 'kids'?" Harry asked as they walked through the plants. Grace absently plucked a large purple fruit the size of a watermelon and tossed it to Harry who sniffed it experimentally before taking a small bite. His eyes widened in surprise as the flavor of the fruit hit his taste buds. "Bloody hell, Grace, this is fantastic!"

"I knew you'd like it," Grace told him with a laugh. "Anyway, most of the kids are just that, kids. But there are a few older kids at the school, mostly young hunters that have finished their training and have decided to learn English. I think you'll like them, but we're going to need to take this slowly as the Na'vi will need to get to know you before they'll trust you. So, at first, you'll just be helping out a bit with the school, getting to know them and vice versa. After a few weeks I'll have you start teaching them, which will free me up to continue my research into the biology of the plants and animals here."

Harry nodded absently as he ate the fruit, juice dribbling from the side of his mouth every now and then from particularly juicy bites. It was starting to sink in just what was going on, and what he had become a part of. "Ok, that doesn't sound too bad."

Grace then spent the next few minutes explaining everything about the avatar compound, what things were, and how to use them. After making sure he didn't have any other questions, Grace left him walking through the garden to go talk to the other new Avatars.

* * *

Ok, shorter chapter I know, but this felt like a good spot to stop. I have finals at school, so I'll be delayed in posting the next chapter as I have to write a couple papers for class, but I'll work on this whenever I get the chance. As always, read and review.


	3. First Contact

**Ok, I had a couple sleepless nights, so I decided to work on the next chapter instead of just laying in bed staring at the ceiling. Anyway, again big thanks to Nug for beta'ing this chapter and helping me get the flow right. I must say that I was very disheartened by the lack of reviews, and it was only the fact that I got a couple really good reviews and messages that gave me the inspiration to write. Well, I guess that's enough of my ranting, on with the chapter.**

**Updated on 3/21/2010  
**

"Speech"

_Thoughts_

First Contact

A few hours later found Harry and the rest of the Avatar drivers along with some of the lab techs from the link center sitting at a table in the mess hall eating dinner. They had left their Avatars locked up safely in the log structure that served as their housing. They talked about scientific ideas and readings, along with many other things that went well over Harry's head, but he sat there eating imitation Salisbury steak while enjoying the atmosphere of being accepted and having a purpose. As the group started to break up to head to bed, Harry sighted Colonel Quaritch walking towards the table, and by the increase in the speed of the others as they left, he wasn't the only one to see him.

"Dr. Augustine, a word if you will," Colonel Quaritch growled out as he walked up to the table.

"What do you want, Quaritch?" Grace replied without even looking at him. "We need to get some sleep before heading out tomorrow."

"Well, that's too bad, ain't it?" Quaritch said as he walked around to face Grace and Harry. He was obviously not taking no for an answer. "I've got some bad news for you. Your little excursion's been scrapped. I'm running a training exercise and I need my pilots here so you'll just have to wait for us to finish. "

"What? You can't do that!" Grace snapped at him, her eyes narrowing in anger.

"Well I just did," Quaritch told her smugly as he crossed his arms. "I may be able to spare a pilot in a week or two, but until then, y'all have fun." With that, Quaritch left before Grace could say anything more, a confident swagger to his walk.

"Damn that man!" Grace growled as she threw her napkin onto the table in anger.

"Relax, Grace. So we have to wait a week before heading out to the school, what's the big deal?"

"Harry, you don't get it, do you? This is just another petty slight against us by the military, pissing on us without the courtesy of calling it rain. Quaritch and Selfridge don't appreciate what we do; to them our research is just a way to present a good front to the public back on earth, to keep them happy while they are busy raping the land," Grace snarled, glaring at anyone who hadn't left in an attempt to avoid her anger.

Harry sighed as he rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on fast. Grace really was a lot like Hermione, not only did she have her brilliant intellect, but she also had her temper. "Grace, they run things around here, so if they say that we can't go, then we can't go. Just relax, alright? Besides, this will give us more time to prepare lesson plans, right?"

Harry found himself lucky as Grace just glared at him before she got up and stalked out of the mess hall, those remaining in the mess hall getting out of her way. She had earned a fearsome reputation for a very good reason.

Harry spent the next week getting a crash course of Na'vi language and customs, as well as practice in his Avatar, pushing him to his limits as he didn't get more that forty hours of sleep over the entire week. Harry also set about relearning his fighting skills for his Na'vi body. However, it wasn't easy as the knife they gave him was a basic military combat knife, only Na'vi sized, which he wasn't used because it required a different style of fighting than his dwarven dagger. But eventually a pilot was given to them to fly them out to the school, and to Harry's amusement it was Trudy.

"So you geeks ready to fly?" Trudy asked as she walked up to Harry and Grace in her flight jumpsuit with her helmet tucked under her arm. Harry looked at Grace and saw that she was trying to stay annoyed, but Trudy was hard to dislike.

"When do we leave?" Harry said as he looked back at Trudy.

Trudy smirked at him and hitched a thumb over her shoulder. "Now, actually. Your guys are loading up your gear into my Samson right now. Just need you to get into your blue kitties and get ready to leave."

"Blue kitties?" Harry mouthed to Grace, who just shrugged and walked off to the link center.

* * *

"Ok, Potter, follow my lead when we get there. They won't trust you right away and I don't need you screwing things up for me," Grace told him as they loaded up some last minute equipment into Trudy's Samson work-horse helicopter. They were in their Avatars and dressed in casual work clothes, with Grace wearing her normal Stanford t-shirt and khaki shorts while Harry was wearing tan slacks with a simple white shirt and a khaki vest.

"Right…" Harry said as he threw a backpack full of books into the helicopter, barely missing the doorgun. "Remind me again just why I agreed to this?"

"Because you know that I'm right about this," Grace replied as she climbed in, making way as a couple of Marines climbed in after her to man the doorguns. "Plus, you're several lightyears away from Earth and the next transport back to Earth won't leave for another year."

"That would be it," Harry joked as he climbed in as well. Above them the rotorblades started up and the craft slowly rose into the air as Trudy took them out of the compound and into the mountains.

Harry looked out of the Samson in amazement as he got his first real look at Pandora, the immense spread of rain forests and mountains taking his breath away. After almost half an hour of flying, they flew by a tree and a large group of purple flying creatures launched into the air around the helicopter, screeching in protest at being disturbed. However, before Harry could get a good look at them, the Samson had flown beyond them and into the forest, traveling down a seemingly natural path in the trees towards a clearing that had been made by repeated landings and takeoffs by the craft.

Harry stepped out onto the landing skid as Trudy slowly settled the Samson on the forest floor, getting ready to explore the wilderness of Pandora for the first time. He was so excited that his tail was twitching and he couldn't sit still, rocking forward and backwards on the balls of his feet. Finally, the Samson touched down and Harry stepped out onto the grass, the wind coming from the rotors whipping his hair around.

"Man, I am so glad I don't need glasses right now," Harry muttered as he grabbed his backpack from the Samson, holding up one hand to block the wind from his eyes. He slung it over one shoulder and made his way towards a well used pathway that had been worn into the ground from repeated travel from the landing zone. When Harry heard the roar of the Samson's engines build, he glanced over his shoulder in time to see Trudy's Samson lift back into the air, leaving the two gunners along with Grace and a couple cases of supplies, before heading back the way they had come in.

"Harry, get over here and give me a hand with this crap!" Grace yelled over the sounds of the leaving Samson.

Harry jogged back over to the small pile of cases and lifted one up and placed it on one his shoulders, using his right hand to hold it steady while picking up a smaller case full of pens, pencils, and art supplies with his left. "So now what?"

Grace just picked up the remaining two cases and walked off into the forest, a scathing look at their escort clearly sending the message that she didn't want the Marines with them and they were to stay out of her way. With a slight shake of his head, Harry followed behind her, grateful for the lower gravity and the greater strength of his Avatar as he shifted the case on his shoulder into a more comfortable position.

After about half an hour of walking through the forest, they came across a good sized building made from local timber that managed to both stand out and yet blend into the forest, the thatch roof fading into the shadows of the filtered sunlight. Harry looked around in amazement as he walked up to a set of stairs and dropped the cases he was carrying onto the ground with a relieved sigh. While they hadn't been all that heavy at first, after half an hour they had seemed to have doubled in weight.

Harry stretched his arms out over his head, his back cracking in several spots as he leaned back into his stretch working out the kinks that he had gotten from the hike, but he froze when several figures seemed to materialize out of thin air. The first one was a girl with several others behind her of different genders. The lead girl was stunningly beautiful, her long black hair was braided with beads in a similar fashion to Grace, but she wore a simple wrap around her torso that didn't impact her movements at all, a bikini like loin cloth giving her some modesty yet hid almost nothing. The others were dressed in a similar fashion which gave Harry his first insight into the Na'vi. If one word could describe them both physically and mentally, he would have to say that word would be 'freedom' or 'primal' as they were not inhibited at all in their dress or their attitude, as several of the Na'vi gave him distrustful looks, especially a young male Na'vi just behind the lead girl.

"Oel ngati kameie, Sylwanin," Grace said softly as she touched her forehead with her right hand and then brought it downwards with a slight bow of her head.

The lead girl, who Harry guessed was named Sylwanin, repeated the gesture before firing off a quick burst of questions that Harry couldn't follow, her eyes darting from Grace to Harry and then back again. Grace looked back at Harry and motioned for him to walk over to them.

"Sylwanin, this is my friend, Harry Potter," Grace said in English as she placed her left hand on Harry's shoulder. She then motioned with her right hand towards Sylwanin. "Harry, this is Sylwanin, the eldest daughter of the olo'eyktan and tsahìk of the Omatikaya clan. Behind her is her younger sister, Neytiri, and Tsu'tey…" Harry nodded to each in turn as Grace introduced him to those who had shown up to greet them. Both Neytiri and Tsu'tey were much younger than him, looking to be around 14 or so, though Tsu'tey was older than Neytiri by about a year.

"You are teacher, yes?" Neytiri asked Harry after Grace had finished introductions, her big eyes reflecting light in their amber depths. Her hair was brushed back into a simple style with a few braided sections falling over her ears.

Harry looked to Grace for guidance, but she gave him a look that clearly stated that he was on his own for this one. With an exasperated sigh, Harry thought about his limited Na'vi vocabulary to phrase his response, wanting no misunderstandings so early on.

"Srane, oel karyu," Harry said in halting Na'vi, getting a rare smile from Grace for his response and final agreement to teach the Na'vi.

"You belong not. You go," Tsu'tey snapped at Harry, showing the distrust that Grace had warned him about.

"Actually, the proper way to say that is 'You don't belong' or you can split 'don't' into 'do not' if you want to make the sentence longer," Harry responded calmly to Tsu'tey, the young man's outburst not bothering him in the least. His easy reprimand angered Tsu'tey, who pulled out a dagger and stalked forward. Harry let his hand slide to the hilt of his knife, ready to draw it should he need to.

"Mawey, Tsu'tey, lu mawey," Sylwanin said softly as she held Tsu'tey back from charging at Harry, who simply took his hand from his knife with a nod of thanks to Sylwanin.

"I think that we should go inside, don't you?" Grace said pointedly to Harry, who got the hint and slowly turned and walked away, picking up a couple cases before entering the school building, the inside just as basic as the outside. There were several desks in the center of the room, with bookcases along the walls that were filled with older books that had been well worn through use. In the front of the room was a large blackboard, bringing back memories of his days at Hogwarts learning about magic.

Harry placed the cases he had brought in on a desk near the door he had come in through before heading back outside to grab his backpack. But before he could go back inside, Grace grabbed his arm and pulled him aside.

"What the hell was that?" she demanded in an angry murmur so as not to be overheard. "I told you to follow my lead!"

"Look, Grace, I know that I probably didn't make things any easier, but I had to show that I wasn't going to back down. To show weakness in a situation like that would have been fatal to any chance at acceptance," Harry replied calmly, though he was inwardly nervous as Grace like Hermione was scary when she was mad.

"Look, take a walk for a little while, let me calm Tsu'tey down," Grace told him with a sigh. "Then you can come back and observe how I run things here. In a few weeks as your Na'vi improves, you'll start teaching some things until I feel you are ready to teach full time."

"Is Tsu'tey that important?" Harry asked curiously. He had been told a little about some of the major people in the local clan, but he hadn't been told anything about most of the kids attending the school.

"He may very well become the next olo'eyktan," was Grace's reply before turning away and heading into the school, leaving Harry standing there.

* * *

After being dismissed by Grace, Harry had taken her advice and went for a walk. One of the Marines that came with them gave Harry a sloppy salute as Harry passed by him, to which Harry simply nodded at him in reply. In his state of amazement, Harry forgot that it was extremely simple to get disoriented in a forest, and he quickly found himself lost, though he knew he hadn't walked too far.

"Bloody hell, how does this always happen to me?" Harry groaned in disbelief as he looked around for anything that looked familiar. However, everything looked the same to him as he tried to go back the way he came.

Harry pushed through some branches and climbed over large tree roots that arched out of the ground, all the while trying to figure out which way to go. He was so focused on trying to make his way through the thick underbrush and over many arching roots that he didn't notice a large figure following him in the shadows. When he stopped to get his bearings, Harry noticed a lack of sound in the general area and his ears flicked around as he felt that something was wrong.

As Harry slowly backed up so that his back was against a tree, a deep growl above him caused him to look up into a large set of jaws that were only a couple feet away from his head. He gulped as he followed those jaws along to the rest of the body of a giant black feline creature that the biologists had named a Thanator, one of the most lethal creatures in all of Pandora, a natural born predator that had no fear from anything on land. Each of its six legs were muscular and capped with strong paws that held large sharp claws.

"Ah shit," Harry swore just before leaping forward as the jaws snapped through the space his head had been a moment before. Harry followed through with a roll and used his momentum to get a small lead on the Thanator as he ran as fast as he could through the forest, but he was hindered by roots, trees, and other plants that were in his way and slowed him down a bit. "You have got to be kidding me! Leave me the bloody hell alone!"

But the Thanator roared as it chased after Harry, not bothering to go around obstacles but went through them instead, sending shards of wood through the air as it destroyed several large branches that were in its way. Several times it caught up to Harry, but he managed to just barely dodge out of the way of its claws and teeth.

The chase went on for several minutes as Harry stayed one step away from death and the Thanator got angrier and angrier as Harry eluded his claws. Finally, Harry made a fatal misstep and took a tumble, and before he could get back to his feet, a large body barreled into him and sent him rolling before two large paws pinned him face up on the ground. As jaws strong enough to rend steel lowered towards his face, Harry felt a pressure build up in his chest, begging for release until he felt a snap inside him just before the jaws of the Thanator closed on his head and he wished he could be somewhere safe.

With a crack of displaced air, Harry suddenly found himself laying on the ground of the clearing they had landed in earlier. He slowly stood up, his muscles protesting after the torture he had put them through as he had run for his life.

"What the hell happened? How did I get here?" Harry muttered to himself as he looked around, half expecting the Thanator to show up again. Harry walked up the pathway they had traveled before, trying to wrap his head around the fact that he was still alive and that he had miraculously apparated despite the fact that he couldn't use magic, not since the final battle.

_How did I use magic? I can't use magic, it's impossible! Voldemort made sure of that._ Harry thought as he walked in a daze. But the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he had actually apparated to safety, and he also came up with a working theory on why he was able to use magic again. _Maybe it's because I'm in an Avatar, maybe I can do it again…_

Harry held out his hand to a fallen branch and thought back to the first spell he had learned. "Windgardium Leviosa!" But nothing happened. Discouraged, but not ready to give up he decided to give it one more try. This time he thought back to how he had felt as the hungry Thanator was about to make a meal out of him, remembering that pressure in his chest as something struggled to break free. As he closed his eyes in concentration, he didn't even use the words, instead willing the branch to rise. He felt something inside him that was alien and yet familiar flow through him, wrapping around him like a warm blanket. When he opened his eyes, he was shocked to see the branch hovering in a couple inches above the ground, wobbling unsteadily in the air. Harry gritted his teeth as he tried to will the branch higher into the air, and it slowly rose another few feet, though it wasn't steady and rocked back and forth in the air. A few beads of sweat rolled down his face as he tried to level out the branch, slowly forcing it to obey his will.

"Wicked," Harry exclaimed, but he lost his concentration and his control over his magic, sending the branch soaring high into the air before coming back down, forcing him to move out of the way so that it didn't land on him. "Whoa, I really need to work on that."

Harry was ecstatic as he reconnected with his magic on a whole new level. He hadn't been strong enough to cast spells wandlessly before, but now it was almost easy to channel his magic without the aid of a focus, such as a wand, but it was taxing on his mind. He just needed to relearn magic, starting from nothing and working from there up, so he wouldn't be helpless again. Relearning his Occlumency again would also help a lot with strengthening his mind so that using his magic didn't strain him so much in the future.

So it was a much happier Harry that walked back to the school, nearly bouncing with excitement. He never noticed Sylwanin slipping back into the forest.

* * *

Ok, here is some translations for the Na'vi:

"**Oel ngati kameie, Sylwanin"** – "I see you, Sylwanin" (common greeting)

"**Srane, oel karyu" – **"Yes, I teacher"

"**Mawey, Tsu'tey, lu mawey"** – "Calm, Tsu'tey, be calm"

Eventually, I'll phase out the actual Na'vi language except in certain circumstances, but until then, I'll have these little translation explanations at the end of the chapters. If anyone wants to learn this fascinating language, send me a private message and I'll get you the web address.


	4. Observations

Alright, time to move onto the next chapter. Again, I own nothing but the plot and anything I create. Oh, and I kinda messed up a little on the timeline. I did some fine-tuning and figured out the year I needed this to take place in. So, the movie takes place in 2154, so that means that the year is 2148 for the story at this point. I'll go back eventually and fix all the little problems, including the timeline. And for those that didn't read it last chapter, I do not own Sylwanin. She's mentioned in the script, but she died before Jake arrived on Pandora. So technically, she's not an OC, just a character that isn't mentioned.

"Speech"

_Thoughts_

_

* * *

  
_

A slim figure glided through the trees, moving around and under obstructions with ease as she moved through the forest. Dr. Augustine had gotten worried about Harry after he hadn't returned, so she had asked for a volunteer to go find him. The only one willing to look for him was Sylwanin, which is why she was traveling through the forests instead of sitting in her usual spot in the back of the school building reading one of Grace's many books. Writing was a foreign concept to the Na'vi, their queues negating the need for a writing system, but Sylwanin found reading to be very relaxing and a great way to learn more about the mysterious humans.

As she traveled through the forest, choosing to travel on foot rather than using her ikran, Hufwe, she thought back to when she had left the school. Dr. Augustine had asked her to go find Harry, indicating that he wouldn't have traveled far as he didn't know the area. On a whim, Sylwanin circled around to the clearing that the Sky People used to come to the area where the school had been built, thinking that perhaps the mysterious man had gone to a familiar area.

However, when she arrived she didn't find any trace of Harry. She cautiously walked through the clearing, sniffing occasionally to try and pick up any recent scents, but the only ones she could detect were hours old. As she prepared to leave and continue her search elsewhere, she heard a loud crack, like a branch snapping, which caused her to turn around. There, in the center of the clearing was the man she had been looking for, in an area that she knew had been empty only seconds before. She quickly hid in the trees surrounding the clearing before Harry could gain his bearings and notice her.

_How did he just appear like that?_ Sylwanin thought to herself as she watched him look around in confusion, his muscles tense as if he was ready for a fight. But then he relaxed as he saw he was in a safe location, which peaked her curiosity. Did he not know how he came to be in that location? When he started walking back up the trail, Sylwanin followed him from the trees, trying to figure out how he could have appeared out of thin air, something that she had never heard of before. When he stopped suddenly after only traveling a little ways and looked around, she thought that Harry had detected her, but relaxed when he turned his focus to a fallen branch along the side of the path.

_What is that Dreamwalker doing?_ At this point, Sylwanin was about ready to reveal herself to him and lead him back to the school, but as she moved closer, she was able to hear him speak in a clear strong voice, but the words he said made no sense to her at all.

Sylwanin had to suppress a giggle at the frustrated look on Harry's face when nothing happened and she started walking forward to reveal herself, but she fell back in shock when the branch that Harry had been pointing at suddenly rose into the air, landing on her backside as she looked at something that wasn't possible. While the Thundering Rocks floated through the air, that was due to the will of Eywa, but this was something else completely, and truth be told, it scared her.

_Vrrtep! Terkup po zene!_ Sylwanin thought to herself as she grabbed her bow and knocked an arrow, kneeling on one knee for better stability. But as she aimed her bow at Harry, she saw a sight that caused her to freeze. Two atokirina, seeds of the great tree, drifted between her and Harry, making it hard to take the shot without hitting them. One of them landed on Harry, while another landed on his outstretched right arm.

"Eywa," Sylwanin breathed out, barely audible even to her. It was a sign from Eywa that he should be allowed to live, so despite her instincts telling her to kill Harry, she lowered her bow and took the arrow off the bowstring. As she did, Harry lost control of his magic and the branch he had been levitating flew high into the air, and when he moved to dodge it as it came down, he dislodged the atokirina and they drifted off on a light breeze. Sylwanin sighed as secured her bow across her back with the bowstring across her chest, resting between her breasts, in a secure fashion that wouldn't negatively affect her should she need to move swiftly.

As Harry continued down the path, Sylwanin glided through the forest to get ahead of him so that she could finish the task Dr. Augustine had asked of her so that she would be able to think about what she had seen in peace. She had a feeling that she had made a mistake by letting the mysterious Dreamwalker live, and yet she knew that Ewya wanted him to live and that superseded all of her misgivings. So it was a conflicted woman that moved into a position further down the path to await Harry.

Harry walked down the path, taking in the sights and smells of the forest, amazed by his Avatar's senses. After finding out that he had regained his magic, something that he had never dreamed possible, Harry was ecstatic and literally had a bounce to his step as he walked along the path. He had already nearly forgotten all about his close encounter with a hungry Thanator, but his body hadn't. When he suddenly spotted a figure by a tree, his body tensed up and stopped in mid-step, his body ready to fight or run.

"Oh, it's just Sylwanin," he muttered to himself in relief as he jogged the rest of the way to the waiting girl. However, he slowed when he saw a look of cautious fear on her face, only for it to be hidden behind a mask of indifference a moment later. "Is something wrong?"

Sylwanin gave him a cautious glance before looking away. "No. Nothing is wrong. You come now," she told him before starting off down the path, not bothering to wait for him.

"Whoa, wait for me," Harry said as he hurried to catch up to her. As they walked, Harry noticed that Sylwanin kept looking at him with a calculating expression, but every time he'd turn to look at her, she would turn her head away.

"So, why'd you come looking for me?" Harry asked as he grew uncomfortable with the silence.

"Dr. Augustine asked it of me, so I did," Sylwanin replied absently, as if she wasn't really paying attention.

"Well, uh, thanks," Harry said, rubbing the back of his neck in a restless move. "I sort of got turned around in the forest, but I made my way back to the clearing alright."

Sylwanin just looked at him before picking up her pace, her long strides easily eating up the distance to the school. The rest of the trip was spent in silence, as every time Harry tried to start a conversation, Sylwanin simply ignored him and increased her pace until they were almost jogging at one point. With the pace the Sylwanin set, they arrived at the school after only twenty minutes and made their way inside.

"Harry, where were you?" Grace asked as she walked up to him. As she approached, Sylwanin headed back outside and gave a short trill. Harry watched her as a large shape came out of the trees, revealing her banshee, which she quickly mounted and flew away. A soft cough drew his attention back to Grace.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Harry asked sheepishly, though he had a slight smile on his face, which only caused Grace to roll her eyes and smack him on the back of the head.

"Ok, troublemaker, go hand out those books to the kids," she told him, motioning to a pile of thin books on the edge of a table. And so began his time at the school helping teach while learning from both Grace and the Na'vi children.

After that very interesting first day, Harry created a new routine for himself. In the mornings he would train with the SecOps guys to keep himself fighting fit, a habit that he had kept from his training to kill Voldemort, then he would go link up with his Avatar and he and Grace would go to the school to teach. Most of the time the same children would be there, but some of the older students would come and go as they pleased, one of which was Sylwanin. Harry always felt nervous around her, as if she was constantly watching him, analyzing his movements and decisions, which she was. During the days at the school, Harry would sneak away and practice his magic, relearning everything as he found that his magic had changed.

* * *

"Stupify!" Harry growled as he thrust his hand out at a tree trunk he was using as a target, trying to will his magic to respond. However, nothing happened and his frustration only grew. "Gah! Why won't it work?"

He waved his hand over the ground and levitated several stones with ease, which actually made his frustration grow. "I can levitate things, transfigure, and do several charms, but why won't some of these spells work? Bugger!" As he ranted to himself, Harry ended the spell and the stones dropped to the ground. He slumped to the ground with his back leaning against a tree.

Harry heard a skittering sound near him and saw a large scorpion like creature crawling up the tree trunk near his head. With a flick of his fingers, Harry lifted the scorpion with his magic and placed it on another tree nearby. He really wasn't in the mood to get stung.

"Figures. Spells like that are easy for me, and yet I can't seem to cast a simple stunning spell."

Harry sighed and leaned his head back against the tree trunk, his eyes closing as he tried to relax. As he sat there, he slowly relaxed to the point where he was almost meditating, working to keep his mind clear so that his frustration would fade away. As he sat there in light meditation, he felt a soft throb in his mind and heard a low hum in his ears that faded when he tried to focus on it.

"Bugger, I can't even rest properly anymore," Harry mumbled as he slowly opened his eyes. His eyes snapped open in shock as he realized that there was a wall of dirt surrounding him, with lines of thin roots surrounding him in a cocoon that supported his body in a very relaxing position.

A moment before he started struggling, his panic welling up inside him, the roots began to quickly retreat back into the ground and the dirt rolled away to reveal the forest canopy above him, along with a very cautious looking Sylwanin who stepped back several paces when she saw Harry.

"Uh, Sylwanin…I can explain this," Harry stuttered as he got to his feet, brushing some dirt off his pants. He glanced back to where he was sitting and saw that it was exactly as it had been before he sat down. _Did I imagine that?_ He thought to himself, but one look back at Sylwanin's distrustful look on her beautiful face was enough to squash that thought.

"How you do that? Are you demon?" Sylwanin asked with a slight glare. She didn't like that Harry could do things that she couldn't even begin to explain, especially when she had been training for years to follow in her mother's footsteps to be the next Tsahìk.

"No, I'm not a demon, Sylwanin. I'm…well, I'm…uh, bugger it all!" Harry said as he rubbed his forehead in irritation. _I can't tell her I'm a wizard; she wouldn't know what that means. How do I get myself into these messes?_

"Then what are you?" Sylwanin asked cautiously.

"I don't know what you would call me or if you even have a word for what I am, but I use magic, so back on Earth I'm called a Wizard," Harry replied after some thought on how to phrase his response.

"What is magic?" At this point, Sylwanin was more curious than cautious, which Harry took as a good sign.

"It's, uh, type of energy that is everywhere and in everything and some people can learn to use it to do things," Harry told her as he sat back down and motioned for her to do the same. "A while back, I lost the ability to use magic, but now I can."

"Does that explain the dirt?" Sylwanin asked, her curiosity growing.

"Actually, I can't really explain how that happened. I could never do that before. I suppose that my magic has changed…which might explain why I can do some things and not others!" Harry exclaimed, finally realizing why he could cast the stunning spell. "But because I've lost some spells, my magic has compensated by giving me new abilities." Just then Harry looked down at his wrist watch, taking a moment to figure out the display as it was a lot different to his old watch. "Ah crap, I gotta go. I guess I'll see you later, Sylwanin. Please don't tell anyone that I can do magic, it would be very bad for me. Trust me, please?"

Sylwanin looked at his worried face, seeing the truth in his eyes, and nodded to him. "I promise."

"Thank you," Harry said, flashing a bright smile before getting up and running back to the school, leaving a very confused and conflicted Sylwanin behind. She stood and looked in the direction that Harry had ran off in, making far too much noise for her liking, and then back to where he had been sitting earlier.

_How does he do these things? The very earth rose around him, forming a barrier that he didn't even know he had created, if what he said is true._ Sylwanin thought as she walked over and kneeled to brush her fingers across the ground. From what she could see, the ground hadn't been disturbed and yet she had seen the dirt rise up around Harry and then flow back into the ground like water, leaving him unharmed.

Sylwanin growled softly in frustration at all the unknowns that surrounded the mysterious teacher. Knowing that she wouldn't find anything new from staying, she stood and headed back to where she had left Hufwe, gliding through the forest in near silence.

* * *

Translations:

"**Vrrtep! Terkup po zene,"** - "Demon! He must die,"

Alright, another chapter finished. Things are going to be interesting in the next few chapters. *grins evilly* Oh, and I have a poll up on my profile, so please go there and give me your input.

**Update (3/14/2010):** Ok, I'd like to apologize to everyone, but I may not be able to write for a while for a couple reasons. One reason is that my Grandma just died and that has thrown off my writing inspiration. I was very close to my Grandma when I was younger, so this is extremely tough for me right now. Until I get over losing her, I doubt I'll be able to write anything. This last part of the chapter was written right after her death, and I found it almost impossible to write what I did. So, please, hang in there and I'll eventually get back to my writing.


	5. Conversations

**I own nothing but what I create. I don't own anything from Harry Potter or Avatar, they belong to their creators. I also do not own the Na'vi language, which was created by Dr. Frommer, PhD. Everything else belongs to me, including Clo'etta. Drifter950 gave me a really good suggestion to help me work through losing my grandma. I've created Clo'etta in her memory.**

**I'd like to take a moment to draw your attention to my review page for this story. A "writer" with the penname of 'Rules With An Iron Hoof' has posted flames for every chapter so far, posting two reviews for chapter 4 by posting an anonymous review. Because of his harassment, I have disabled anonymous reviews. I have received a few flames over the years I have been writing, but never have I seen anything close to his flames. They were spiteful and venomous; the one for chapter 4 was a direct attack on me, with nothing to do with my story. Because of this, I have blocked him, which is why he submitted an anonymous review.**

**The point of this is that I would like to just point out for future and present readers that I do not appreciate flames. They are pointless and hurtful, for both the writer and the reviewer. Over the years I have been reading fanfiction, I have flamed a couple of stories; I won't deny it. But each time I did, I regretted it immensely, and I always apologized immediately to the writer. Flaming a story may make you feel better, but it doesn't do anything to help the problem you may see in the story. Instead of just bashing a story, offer a suggestion to the problem and be nice about it. Trust me, 99% of the time, you'll get a response from a grateful writer for the input. That's called constructive criticism, and most writers love finding ways to improve our stories in ways we hadn't thought of before. I've gotten a few for this story and I have used most of them to improve the chapters and will post the updated chapters eventually.**

**Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get that out, and now…ON WITH THE SHOW!!!**

"speech"

_Thoughts or Flashbacks_

Conversations

Sylwanin sat high in the branches of Hometree, her legs dangling over the side of the branch she was on. She stroked her queue in thought, a habit she had developed when she was younger. She chewed slightly on her bottom lip and she thought back to what she had seen since Harry had come into their lives. When she first met him, he had looked like nothing more than any other Dreamwalker that she had seen. He looked more like the Na'vi than Grace did, so she had decided to reserve judging him until she could see past his exterior and into his soul. As she sat in thought, she smiled as she remembered her conversation with the woman who had been like a second mother to her, helping her whenever she had a problem that she could not bring to her mother.

_She had been sitting by the cooking fire, looking into the flames that were exactly like those she had seen the Dreamwalker Harry playing with before she had revealed that she had been watching him. He had simply held out his hand and fire had appeared over his hand before going out and repeating. She played idly with her queue as she thought about all the mysterious things that she had seen Harry do._

"_What bothers you, young one?" asked an elderly Na'vi. Her skin was wrinkled and worn from time and her limbs had lost much of their strength, yet her eyes showed a spirit within that was not hampered by her physical limitations. She was dressed in a modest cloth garment that wrapped around her torso fully to help shield her from the elements and draped across her legs but went no further than her knees._

_With a sigh, she sat on a wide branch that came out of the tree next to Sylwanin, pulling the girl's queue from her hands and carefully placing it down her back. "You have been quiet lately, a strange change from how you usually behave."_

"_Clo'etta, have you ever believed something, but then you saw something that changed that belief?" Sylwanin said after a few minutes of silence. Her idle hands went to the beads in her hair, pulling the braids back behind her ears._

"_What has happened, child? What is it that troubles you?"_

_Sylwanin turned to look at the woman that had been a confidant to her since she was a little girl. "A man. He is not like any other that I have ever known. He is fearless, and yet his heart is pure and innocent, and he can do things that I know are impossible."_

"_I do not believe your parents would be pleased to hear about your interest in such a man," Clo'etta teased the young woman with a slight smile. "You know that they intend to betroth you to Tsu'tey."_

_Sylwanin made a disgusted face. "They can intend all that they want, but I will never mate with Tsu'tey. He is young, brash, and too arrogant for my liking."_

"_And this other man, is he to your liking?" Clo'etta asked softly._

_Opening her mouth to immediately deny Clo'etta's suggestion, Sylwanin paused as she stopped to think more about Harry. She closed her mouth and looked back into the fire, a branch crumbling as the fire ate away at it, listening to it crackle. "I am not sure. Perhaps, but he is not Na'vi. He is one of the Dreamwalkers, and yet he is not like the others. So nothing could ever form between us, we are simply too different."_

_Clo'etta smiled at Sylwanin, resting her hand on the girl's shoulder. "I am certain that things will resolve themselves, child. In the mean time, just remember to watch your tail and know that you can always come to me to talk." With that, Clo'etta stood and headed back into the heart of Hometree, knowing that Sylwanin needed time to think alone._

"Why do I protect him?" Sylwanin asked herself as she looked out over the forest. "He is not natural, a demon in false skin…and yet I have kept my promise to him not to tell of what I have seen."

"Sylwanin? Sister?" a voice called out from the other side of a large branch that blocked her from sight.

"I am here, Neytiri."

Neytiri climbed over the large branch and made her way carefully to a spot near her sister and sat down an arm's length away from her.

"I didn't see you at afternoon meal. Where were you?"said Neytiri, looking at her older sister through her hair as it fell over her eyes.

Sylwanin smiled at her little sister and scooted over to sit next to her, wrapping her left arm around Neytiri's shoulders. "I am sorry to have worried you, sister. I suppose that I have been hard to find as of late."

"You didn't answer my question," Neytiri said with a pout, leaning her head on Sylwanin's shoulder.

Sylwanin smiled, Neytiri was very persistent when she wanted something. The two of them were similar and yet complete opposites, Sylwanin was the picture of responsibility while Neytiri was a free spirit, but they both had a fierce desire to help their people in any way they could, and would do anything to protect their family and home. If something was bothering her big sister, then Neytiri wanted to know and help.

"I have been distracted," Sylwanin admitted after a minute. "Harry Potter is a very mysterious man, and he intrigues me."

Neytiri wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Harry Potter? That new teacher that Grace brought to her school? What in Eywa's name is so interesting about him?"

"You would be surprised, little one. There are things about him that you would not believe if I told you."

"So, tell me," Neytiri said defiantly.

Sylwanin simply giggled at her sister's tone. "His story is not mine to tell. Perhaps in time he will share it with you, but you will not get it from me." Sylwanin had already come too close to breaking her promise to Harry when she talked with Clo'etta, and when she made a promise, she kept it.

"But I want to know now," Neytiri whined as she looked at her sister with pleading eyes.

"Then you should ask Harry to tell you next time you see him at the school."

When Neytiri shied away from the conversation, Sylwanin knew she had successfully gotten her sister to drop the issue. While she was curious, she wasn't willing to actually go to Harry and ask him to tell her his secrets.

"Come, young one, let us go and practice your accuracy with your bow. You will soon be old enough to undergo the trials to become a hunter," Sylwanin said as she gracefully got to her feet, Neytiri doing the same, though she was still pouting at not getting what she wanted from her sister.

* * *

"Hey, Potter! What are you doing?" Grace said as she walked into his quarters at Hell's Gate. She had come to get him for some lessons on the Na'vi, but when she entered his room, she found him half naked and posing in an interesting position, leaning backwards in an inverted 'u' shape with his hands on the ground behind him.

"It's called yoga, Grace. It's very relaxing," Harry said as he flipped over backwards, keeping his hands on the ground while doing so until he was standing on his feet.

"Where did you learn yoga?"

Harry grabbed a towel that had been hanging over the back of his desk chair and wiped sweat off his face. "A friend taught me a long time ago, while I was training to defeat Riddle. Her name was Tonks and she was an Auror…as well as my godfather's cousin."

Harry slung the towel over his shoulder, grabbed a bottle of water and took a deep drink, ignoring the fact that he was standing in front of Grace with only his pants on. He had been exercising for around an hour and had finished with doing some of his favorite yoga moves before Grace had barged into his room.

"So, is there a reason you didn't bother knocking before letting yourself in?" Harry asked as he turned to face Grace, absently wiping the sweat off his chest.

"Damn, Potter, if I was thirty years younger…" Grace said with a low whistle as she admired his toned body, fit from years of training with some of the best instructors that he could find.

"In your dreams, Gracie," Harry told her with a smirk as he walked over to his closet and pulled on a shirt.

"Well, I wanted to run through what you've learned so far from the Na'vi, and to go from there and help you learn more so that you'll be able to fit in better with the kids," Grace told him with a scowl at being called 'Gracie'.

"Seriously? Grace, don't you ever take time off to relax? You've got good genes, but if you keep this up, you'll look like shite before you hit 60."

"Watch your mouth, Potter. Don't forget that I'm your boss," Grace warned him, though she knew that he had a good point. "Fine, we'll take today off, but you better not whine when I run your ass ragged tomorrow."

Harry shot her a smile as he hopped onto his bed and laid down horizontally, with his head hanging off the edge of the bed. "Hey, there's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Well, go ahead and ask," Grace told him as she pulled out his desk chair and sat down.

"Well, since Hermione was your grandmother, wouldn't that make you magical as well?"

Grace sighed as she pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a deep pull before exhaling. "Yeah, I should be, but I'm not. My mother could do magic, but I never got the gift, so I devoted myself to science. In the old days, I'd be called a squib…what an idiotic name to call someone."

Harry chuckled as he sat up, but coughed as he got a face full of smoke. He got up and snagged the cigarette from her lips. "Why do you do this to yourself? What would Hermione say about this?"

Grace glared at him and tried to grab her cigarette back, but Harry kept it out of reach. "She'd probably tell me to give her one of her own. She was practically a chain smoker, Harry."

"What?" Harry was shocked as Hermione had always been so careful about her health.

"She told me that she started after you disappeared. I guess thinking that she had sent you to your death was too much for her to handle," Grace told him sadly before making another attempt and stealing her cigarette back. When Harry still kept it out her reach, she smacked his shoulder and pulled out another one and lit it up with a smirk.

Harry rolled his eyes and looked at the cigarette in his fingers curiously. He took an experimental drag, but his eyes bugged out and he started coughing violently. He ran to the bathroom, threw it in the toilet and flushed while saying every swear word he knew between coughs while Grace nearly fell off her chair from laughing too hard.

"Idiot."

* * *

Meanwhile, in the office of the administrator Parker Selfridge, a meeting was going on between Parker and Colonel Quaritch. Parker was going over the Quarterly reports he was due to send back to Earth and he wasn't liking what he saw.

"Miles, look at these numbers! We should be doing twice this amount with the amount of work we got going on out there," Parker said as he leaned back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he felt a headache coming on. "The Board isn't going to like how low some of these numbers are and will demand answers!"

"Well, if we took more active measures against those Na'vi, we'd be able to increase those numbers," said Quaritch, saying Na'vi like it was something foul.

"We can't. For now, the Board is behind Dr. Augustine's methods, meaning they won't authorize those measures," Parker said as he rolled his eyes and rested his head on his propped up hand. He was on Pandora to turn a healthy profit, but the Avatar program was eating away at those profits with little to show for it.

"For now, we're going to have to let Augustine continue her 'school' so that we can get the natives' cooperation, get them to see that we aren't 'evil demons' out to destroy them. Jesus, this is not what I thought I'd be dealing with out here."

"I think that we're gonna have to prepare for plan B, Parker. Things are only getting worse after all," Quaritch said as he closed the blinds to the room.

"The Board hasn't approved of that yet. We'll never get a go."

"Well, what they don't know won't hurt 'em," said Quaritch with a smirk. "Now, you gonna grow a pair or are you just the Board of Directors' puppet?"

"Alright…I'm listening."

"We need someone on the inside of Augustine's little team, someone that is loyal to us, so that means that they can't be a scientist. A Marine would be best, but I'll take any type of soldier as long as they follow orders," Quaritch said as he walked up to Parker's desk, placing his hands on the desk.

"You know what, I think I might have something," Parker said as he sat up and typed in a search into his computer. "Here, I think you'll like this."

Quaritch walked around the desk to look at the file that Parker had pulled up. It was the file for a doctor that had just finished his Avatar training and was set to leave Earth in only two months. The name on the file was Tom Sully, and Parker had viewed it when the man had been chosen to join the Avatar program. But what made the file interesting was a file that was attached to Tom's file, a file reading Jake Sully.

"Interesting, Parker. This shows promise."

"Let me give you the highlights," Parker said, feeling smug that he held the cards this time. "Tom's twin brother was a Marine, but he was honorably discharged after he was wounded in action." Parker brought up Jake's medical file.

"He got a spinal injury, not a bad one but bad enough to make his legs useless. Heh, I don't think I could have asked for a more perfect candidate. If we offer him back his legs, he'll move mountains for us." The Colonel's grin was practically feral. "Oh, he was first recon too, even better! Parker, I think we've got us a winner here."

"Just one problem, Miles. It's his brother that's in the program, not him. How do you plan on getting him into the Avatar program? Magic?"

"Just you leave that to me. Oh, I'll need to use your link-up with Earth. You can send that report and I'll call in a few favors," Quaritch said as he strode to the door and opened it, barely pausing long enough for Parker to catch up before walking through the compound to where the base's supercomputer was located.

When Hell's Gate was designed, the RDA company gave it a system that was the very latest in communication technology, along the same lines as the technology that was used in the Avatar's only much more powerful, capable of spanning the light-years between Pandora and Earth without a five year delay.

_The greed of men is so useful._ Quaritch thought smugly as he strode through the hallways as if he owned the place. _Since no one wanted to wait years for a simple quarterly report, they gave us the ultimate computer. Not even the UN has one of these babies._

When they got to the computer room, Quaritch looked to Parker. "Alright, Mr. Administrator, you know the drill."

As Parker started up the connection, he gave Quaritch a piercing look. "Miles, just what are you going to do? I think I have the right to know what you're getting us into."

The scars of Quaritch's face stood out in the dim lighting of the computer room, which gave Parker the creeps. The gleam in the man's eyes was frightening to behold.

"I'm getting us an ace in the hole, one way or another."

* * *

**Alright, things are picking up. In an ironic twist, I have to say that those insane flames pissed me off so much that I managed to get my groove back.**


	6. Darkness Falls

Warning: This chapter contains description of torture and death. Also, I don't own anything but what I create.

"English"

~Na'vi~

_Thought  
_

_

* * *

_

**Darkness Falls**

Harry groaned as he picked himself off the ground after falling when he apparated onto a branch a few feet off of the ground. He had been practicing his apparition skills, and while he had made huge improvements after only two months of practice, he still had trouble at times.

"Bloody hell, this terrain is killing me," Harry muttered as he dusted himself off.

Harry had been given some time off and while everyone thought that he was still at Hell's Gate thanks to a few well placed illusions, he took the time to go exploring and practice his apparition, killing two birds with one stone.

"Well, at least I can always find my way back home," Harry sighed and sat down with his back to a thick tree, to take a rest as he had been at it all day and it was getting on to late afternoon. He ran his hand idly over the ground next to him and felt it respond to his touch, smoothing out as he willed it to do so.

It had been quite a shock to him when he found that the earth responded to his will, as did the other elements, as he found after some experimentation. While it wasn't complete control, it was close at times. A few times, when he was practicing his flame spells, he had been drawn to the fire and unconsciously drew it to him until he was holding a ball of fire in his hand. After having that happen a few times, he devoted a few days to figuring out just how far he could push his new abilities.

_I think that I've gained abilities like the ancient Druids back on Earth. The history books always claimed that they had the ability to manipulate the elements, creating storms where fire fell instead of water, or causing the ground to open up and swallow their enemies._ Harry thought as he closed his eyes after placing a ward around him to alert him if anything came close to him. A smile came to his face as he imagined how things might have gone between him and Voldemort if he had received those abilities back then. In a way, it gave him a sense of pride to know that he was continuing the legend of the Druids, even if he didn't plan of anyone finding out about his abilities.

Suddenly, the peaceful silence was broken by a scream of pain from off in the distance. Harry quickly got to his feet and listened to see if he could tell where the scream came from. When another scream cut through the air, louder this time, Harry ran through the forest in the general direction that the scream came from, not wanting to risk apparition as he didn't have a clue as to where he'd end up or who might see. But as he ran, the screams grew louder and more desperate as if the person screaming was in incredible agony.

Harry nearly ran full speed into a clearing like the one they used to get to the school, but he managed to stop a few meters before doing so when he saw just what was going on. On the other side of the clearing, a young Na'vi male was trying to crawl away, his legs dragging uselessly behind him as he used his strong arms to pull himself across the ground.

Looking around, Harry saw just what the Na'vi was trying to get away from and his blood ran cold when he discovered a squad of RDA Security Operations soldiers laughing and pointing at the injured Na'vi, one of them in an AMP suit. The one in the AMP suit walked forward and grabbed the injured Na'vi's legs, throwing him back into the center of the clearing with a careless toss.

"You think you can leave the party now, blue boy? I don't think so," the man in the suit growled out, his suit's speakers blaring to life. "I ain't done with you yet, not by a long shot."

Harry forced himself to look at the injured Na'vi more closely and was shocked and disgusted by what he saw. The young male, only a few years younger than Harry, had both his legs shattered with bones sticking out of the skin in several places, which showed just how much he had been put through as Na'vi bones were extremely tough to damage. There were burns all over his body, and his face was bloody and cut up along with his torso, with long cuts all over his arms.

"Guys, don't you think he's had enough? Aren't you taking this all too far?" one of the younger squad members asked, Harry identifying him as Private Sean Fike. He and Harry had gotten along well as they both had a flair for blades, with Fike always wearing a machete strapped to his back that he was skilled in using.

"Shut it, Fike! These bastards killed my little brother and I'm damn well gonna make 'em pay," the man in the AMP suit snapped. Harry realized that he was Tobias Richardson, a Sergeant in SecOps that hadn't taken his brother's death very well.

"That's right man! Make him suffer!" shouted one of the other squad members, but Harry didn't recognize him.

~Please, leave me be. I have done nothing to you,~ the wounded Na'vi pleaded with them. But they didn't understand what he had said.

"Listen to this vermin. Can't even speak English," scoffed Tobias as he picked up the Na'vi and slammed his suit's fist into his gut. "If you're gonna say something, say it so we can understand you, savage!"

"Alone leave me…please," the Na'vi said in broken English with a very strong accent. Tobias dropped the breathless Na'vi with a laugh.

"Heh, get that? He wants us to leave 'em alone." The look on Tobias's face was pure evil.

"Sarge! Please, let's go. We're gonna catch hell from the Colonel if we don't head back to base now," Fike shouted, trying to distract his homicidal squad leader.

The other guys in the squad cursed as they realized that Fike was right. The group of soldiers gathered their gear and started to head out of the clearing, but stopped when they realized that Tobias wasn't following them. Instead, he was standing over his victim, glaring at the Na'vi with hate in his eyes.

Harry was frozen in the shadows, his mind no longer seeing the actual scene, but instead he saw Voldemort standing over Neville. The two of them had been scouting around Little Hangleton to see if they could find any traces of the Death Eaters, but they had been detected and a battle had ensued with both Harry and Neville being injured.

"_Give up you fools. There is no escape now that you have delivered yourselves to me," Voldemort gloated as he stood over Harry as he tried to stand back up, but his left leg had been broken from a well aimed hex._

"_In your dreams, Riddle. Our friends will come for us. In fact, they're probably on their way now!" Harry snapped, but a large Death Eater next to him backhanded him in the jaw, sending him back to the ground with a grunt of pain._

"_There will be no aid for you," a silky voice said from behind Voldemort. Harry's stomach dropped when he recognized Snape's voice, finally finding out just where the Potion Master's loyalties lay. "Your precious friends believe you to be in London after not finding anything here."_

"_You traitor! I'll fucking kill you!" Neville shouted as he struggled to crawl to his knees, despite injuries to his torso and legs._

"_And how do you plan on doing that, Longbottom? You can't even stand," Snape scoffed, flicking a spell at Neville that sent him sprawling._

"_Handle Potter, Severus. I want him to see this," Voldemort hissed as he walked over to Neville, his wand glowing in the fading light._

"_Gladly, my Lord."_

_Snape flicked his wand and Harry found himself floating in the air a few inches off the ground in an upright position. Harry tried to glare at Snape, but found that he had no motor control and that he had no choice but to look at where Neville was laying on the ground, his blood flowing from many minor wounds._

"_I must say, Longbottom, Bellatrix will be very disappointed. She was so hoping to have a chance to play with you before you die," Voldemort said smoothly, his red eyes gleaming in the low light. "Such a pity, but your miserable life ends here."_

_Neville glared defiantly at the man who called himself a Dark Lord, refusing to beg for his life. He grabbed his wand from next to him, but before he could shoot off a spell, Voldemort had disarmed him._

"_Crucio."_

_Voldemort's spell hit Neville and Neville grit his teeth to keep from screaming, his eyes shutting in an effort to withstand the pain. But he finally couldn't handle it and a scream of agony ripped from his throat. Voldemort smiled cruelly as he let up the spell._

"_So, how was that, little boy? Did you enjoy that?"_

"_Go…to hell, you…bastard," Neville said, coughing up some blood._

"_So, you still have some fight left in you. Good," Voldemort said with a cruel smile. _

_Harry watched helplessly as Voldemort tortured Neville with many dark, forgotten spells, only to heal the damage. After about twenty minutes, Neville started choking on his own blood before Voldemort used a spell to clear his lungs of the blood that had formed there, along with the air in Neville's lungs as well, leaving him gasping for breath._

"_Oh dear, it seems that you tore something inside. Such a pity, I had hoped you'd last longer," Voldemort said as he held his wand loosely in his hand. Harry had a sinking feeling, which Neville shared by the fact that he looked over to where Harry was being held helplessly in the air._

"_Harry, you've got to escape…you've got to win," Neville gasped out, his voice barely reaching Harry, who nodded while trying to hold back tears._

"_Time to end this. Avada Kedavra!" a sickly green light shot from Voldemort's wand and hit Neville in the chest. Harry watched in shock as the life faded from his friend's eyes._

"_As for you, Harry Potter, you shall not be sharing his fate. No, what I have planned for you shall leave you begging for death by the end, and you shall see the downfall of all that you hold dear," Voldemort hissed as he walked over to where Harry was held by Snape's spell, his red eyes glinting with an insane light in anticipation of what was to come._

Harry gasped as his mind came back to the present, the long suppressed memory leaving him feeling weak and shaky. He had suffered two long weeks of torture at the hands of Voldemort and his Death Eaters before managing to escape. After he had recovered enough to be able to talk again, he had the misfortune of having had to be the one to tell Ginny that her fiancé had been murdered by Voldemort.

"Sarge, let's roll out. Leave that freak to die," one of the men shouted out, drawing Harry's attention back to the scene at hand.

"One minute," Tobias called back as he grabbed the young Na'vi's queue with his AMP suit's left hand, using it to lift him into the air.

~Please, I beg you…I have done nothing to you.~

Harry fell to his knees, knowing that there was nothing he could do without showing himself, and that would not end well. If they found out about his magic, which was the only way to explain how he had gotten so far into the forest, then he would never be allowed back into his Avatar, at the very least.

His magic welled up inside of his body, seeking a release, but there was no outlet. As Tobias withdrew his suit's large knife, Harry nearly revealed himself, but managed to hold back.

_Don't do it. Please, don't do what I think you're going to do._ Harry pleaded mentally, his hands digging into the ground as he watched with growing despair.

"This is for my brother," Tobias growled as he held up his knife, the young Na'vi's eyes widening as he realized what the human had in mind for him. In a swift move, Tobias severed the Na'vi's queue at the base of his skull.

The Na'vi let out a blood curdling scream as he fell to the ground, his hands going to his head to try and relieve the pain, but Harry knew that nothing would help. One of the first things Harry had learned about the Na'vi was that their queue was everything to them. It wasn't just an extension of their nervous system, without it a Na'vi couldn't ride a direhorse or banshee, couldn't take a mate, and could never listen to the spirit of the planet, or Eywa. What Tobias had just done was the ultimate act of cruelty against a Na'vi. Even if the Na'vi survived, he'd never truly live again, he'd never be the same.

"There, now we're done. Let's go," Tobias said as he unslung his rifle from its holder on the back of his suit. The other SecOps soldiers watched in shock as their squad leader walked away as if nothing had happened.

Harry finally snapped as he watched the men start to leave, his magic swirling around him, and his eyes glowed a soft white. The wind picked up, causing the trees to sway and the leaves dance though the air. The squad looked around in surprise as a gust of wind ripped through the clearing, causing several of them to stumble into the trees as they lost their balance. A small tornado formed in the thick air, breaking the men from their stupor, causing them to run into the safety of the forest where the trees disrupted the tornado, though many suffered scrapes and bruises as they were pelted with sticks and stones.

"Let's get the hell out of here!"

As Harry lost sight of the squad, the winds died down as he slowly calmed himself, regaining control over his magic and his eyes stopped glowing. He slowly stood, not bothering to brush the dirt off his pants, and walked over to the Na'vi, who had stopped screaming and was simply whimpering in pain. Tears welled up in Harry's eyes as he knelt next to the young Na'vi, who barely even noticed him through the pain.

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered.

"Kill…me…" the Na'vi gasped out, one eye cracking open to look at Harry.

"What?" Harry asked in shock.

~You may not be one of us,~ the Na'vi said, his voice barely a whisper, ~but if you have any honor, you won't let me suffer like this. So, please, kill me.~

~No, I save you. You not die,~ Harry said haltingly. He held his hand to the base of the young Na'vi's head and channeled his magic to try and heal him, while doing the same for his legs.

After a few minutes, Harry forced himself to stop when he didn't see any improvement. The only thing that happened was that the blood stopped flowing from the base of the Na'vi's head.

~I…I failed.~

~Eywa has blessed you with a gift,~ the Na'vi said, looking a little better, but still in immense pain. ~They have taken everything from me. Please…~

Harry looked away, trying to decide what he could do, not wanting to end this poor Na'vi's life. But his hesitation seemed to offend the young Na'vi.

~Fine, if you will not help me…~ With that, he reached down to his waist with a shaking hand and pulled out his long dagger and tried to lift it, but it slipped from his hand. He cursed and tried to pick it up, but Harry stopped him.

~Alright, I will help.~ Harry said softly, trying to remain strong.

~Thank you…brother,~ the Na'vi replied, surprising Harry by his use of the term 'brother'.

~May your spirit go with Eywa, brother,~ Harry said as he placed his hand on the Na'vi's chest. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. With a grateful smile, the Na'vi closed his eyes, and Harry used his magic to stop his heart, a quick and painless death. When Harry could no longer hear the Na'vi's breath, he let the tears he had been holding back fall, crying both for the loss of life and the loss of his remaining innocence.

* * *

Harry sat in the mess hall a few hours later, brooding over a cup of coffee. He took a sip and grimaced, still not used to the taste. He thought back to the nameless Na'vi that he had been forced to kill to end his suffering. He had looked around and had found a bullet filled Banshee, which explained how the Na'vi had ended up in the clearing. He had probably seen something in the clearing and had flown down to investigate, but had ended up in the hands of the SecOps soldiers after they killed his mount.

_Just because they thought it was funny, they tortured that Na'vi and then mutilated him and left him for dead. These guys are no better than Death Eaters._ Harry thought darkly as he held his cup in front of his face, the steam curling up into the air in front of his eyes.

He continued to brood in silence until several new arrivals to the mess hall caught his eye. There, entering the hall, was Tobias Richardson and two of his squad mates, laughing and joking around as if they hadn't just committed an unspeakable act of cruelty. Hatred welled up inside Harry as Tobias made a cutting motion with his hand and then laughed loudly.

Harry glared at Tobias as his hands started to shake as he fought to control his rage. With a loud crack, his cup of coffee shattered in his hands, spilling hot coffee on the table and into his lap, but he barely noticed. There were a few people around him that shot him weird looks, but he ignored them and stood up, deciding to leave before he did something he'd regret.

Harry stormed through the base in a fog, his anger and sorrow eating away at him. Before he knew it, he was in the training gym where he had spent a good amount of time sparring with some of the soldiers that had been in that clearing.

Harry looked around at the gym and he saw a heavy punching bag out of the corner of his eye and he stalked over to it and started hitting it as hard as he could, not even bothering to warm up or stretch. He tried to let out all his anger and guilt on the punching bag, but there seemed to be no end to his feelings. After about fifteen minutes of punching and kicking, Harry finally stopped and leaned against the bag, resting his forehead on the cool material of the bag.

"Man, Potter, what's got your panties in a bunch?"

Harry raised his head and looked over his shoulder at Trudy, giving her a flat look, his dull green eyes lacking the spark of life they usually had.

"Bugger off, Trudy. I'm not in the mood right now, alright?"

"What's wrong, Harry?" Trudy said, her usual smirk sliding off her face to be replaced by a look of concern.

"Like you really care. You military people are all alike, only caring about yourselves and nothing for others," Harry snapped as he punched the bag again, feeling his anger build again.

Trudy looked as if she had been slapped. She and Harry had developed a fairly good working relationship, so this sudden hostility surprised her. Her eyes narrowed and she grabbed his shoulder and turned him around to face her.

"Listen here, Potter. I don't know what's gotten into you, but snapping at me isn't going to do anything but piss me off. Now, are you going to tell me what's got you so pissed off, or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?"

Harry glared at Trudy and seriously considered taking a swing at her, but he sighed and walked over to a chair and sat down. He rested his head in his hands, his whole posture that of a weary man.

"I saw something today, something that brought up some bad memories. So please, just leave me alone."

"Alright, but if you want to talk, I'm here for ya," Trudy said, ruffling his hair before leaving the gym.

Harry sighed as he watched Trudy walk away, his eyes dropping to the ground. He wished he could tell her what was really bothering him, but he couldn't do that without revealing way too much about himself. How could he explain that he had been miles away in the forest without anyone knowing without telling her about his magic? It was impossible, and thus he couldn't tell her anything.

"While she may be willing to let it go at that, I'm not," Grace said from beside him. His head snapped up and he saw her leaning against the wall, a calculating look on her face. "What's going on, Harry?"

"Grace…I can't…it's too complicated," Harry said as he looked away from her.

"Well that's bullshit, and you know it."

"Alright! Fine. I overheard some of the soldiers talking about what they did to a Na'vi, and it brought up old memories of the War. Happy?" Harry growled, though he was inwardly pleased that he came up with a plausible explanation for her without revealing anything.

Grace actually winced as she knew that the War was a touchy subject for Harry. From her point of view, it had been over a century since the Magical Wars, the stories told by her long lived great-grandmother with a look of pain as she lit a cigarette giving a weight to the events for her, but it was all ancient history. But for Harry, it had only been a few years and he still missed the friends he had lost and time had not yet softened his memories. Grace grabbed a chair and pulled it over to sit next to him, looking around to make sure that there was no one else using the gym that could overhear them. There were a few people, but they were on the other side of the gym, well out of range of hearing their conversation.

"Harry, I know things are tough, but you got to move on. You can't let the past overwhelm you like this or you're not going to be of much use around here," Grace said, trying to lighten Harry up a little. When he didn't laugh at all, she let out a soft sigh. "Look, I don't know what you heard…I'm not sure if I want to know, but whatever you heard was probably exaggerated or made up. You know, they've gotta be all macho."

Harry looked up at her, wishing he could move on so easily. He almost told her what had actually happened, but instead he said, "You're probably right. I think I'll go for a walk to clear my head. I'll see you at dinner."

With that, Harry stood and walked away, trying to get the images of the clearing out of his head.

* * *

The next few weeks were difficult for Harry, as every time he saw Tobias or even someone from SecOps, it would remind him of the scene in the forest. He had even stopped training with them in the mornings, choosing to exercise alone. But his confliction only grew as he saw examples everywhere of the detestation that the human's on Pandora felt for the Na'vi. Many of the long term people at Hell's Gate, including Parker Selfridge, had collections of Na'vi artifacts that they had either found or taken from the Na'vi. Trinkets, weapons, even clothing were displayed in offices and quarters all around the base. On Earth, taking these items would be a crime, but as they were on Pandora, far away from Earth's control, people took things at will without consequences.

_Why didn't I notice the way people treated the Na'vi before? We're the ones invading Pandora, even if we've been nice about it, and yet people feel like they're justified in treating the Na'vi like shite just because they've fought back._ Harry thought one day when he passed by Selfridge's office, seeing all the Na'vi artifacts inside.

In order to have an excuse so he didn't have to deal with the SecOps soldiers, Harry took to staying in his Avatar as often as possible, sometimes for fifteen hours straight or more. He quickly became the foremost expert on using Avatar's, knowing every little detail about them: the limitations of the link, the Avatars' full potential, their strengths and their weaknesses.

"Harry, you have to slow down or you'll burn yourself out," Grace told him once as she saw him heading back into the Link center after a quick lunch.

That was her usual warning for awhile, but eventually she gave up and instead worked on helping him keep his human body in working order. As he spent more and more time in his Avatar, his human body started to atrophy and lose muscle mass from a general lack of exercise, his eyes dulled from lack of sleep, and his normally untamable hair grew out and became a shaggy mess.

"Harry, I need your help with something," Grace told him one evening during dinner. They were the only ones in the mess hall, everyone else heading off to bed except them. Grace spent as little time asleep as possible for the sake of her research while Harry had started having nightmares after that fateful day, making it impossible for him to have a decent night's sleep.

Harry just grunted in response, idly picking at his food. Just the night before he had had a nightmare of Sirius falling through the Veil again, something he hadn't thought of in years and it had left him unsettled.

"Look, Harry, you know I think that you're nuts, right? You are spending way too much time in link. I mean, come on, just look at yourself! You look like shit!" Grace growled at him, causing him to look up at her briefly before returning his gaze to his food. "Jesus, Harry, don't you care about anything anymore? Even the Na'vi have seen the changes in you, and I think it's starting to worry them."

Harry sighed as he put his fork down and leaned back in his chair, running his fingers through his hair. He considered giving her his usual "I'm fine" statement, but since he didn't figure she'd buy it, he decided to just ignore the situation for now.

"So what is it you need my help with?"

Grace gave him a look that clearly said 'we aren't finished with this' and cleared her throat. "Seeing as you are spending so much time in your Avatar, I figure you can help us make the link technology better. You know, give us input and help us tweek things to make them better," Grace told him as she pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

"I guess I can do that," Harry said with a shrug before standing up and picking up his tray of half-eaten food.

"Oh, and Harry, I put some pills in a cup by your bed. They'll help you sleep. Trust me, you need it."

Harry let out a noncommittal grunt as he dumped his food and headed out of the mess hall to get some sleep.

* * *

Ok, another chapter done, and for this one I upgraded the rating to be on the safe side. Thing are about as bad as they can get for Harry, but life is about to turn around. So, as always, reviews are encouraged and flames are not accepted and may get you blocked. If you guys get any ideas while reading my story, tell me them in a review and if I use them, I'll give you credit for the idea.


	7. Tension Grows

**Ok, after the long last chapter I had trouble figuring out how to work this chapter. I had an attack of writer's block, but I got past it finally. I've been forced to change the Na'vi language icon as for some reason won't let me use what I was using before.  
**

"English"

~Na'vi~

_Thoughts_

**  
**_Tension Grows_

Sylwanin flew through the air above the forest on her ikran, soaring through the morning mist with a slight smile as she enjoyed the unique experience of sharing one's mind with another. As she and her ikran flew through the air, she kept a lookout for any sign of a missing Na'vi, one she had grown up with and was very close to.

_Tel'anan, where are you?_ Sylwanin thought as she banked her ikran to the left to head closer to the human's base, but not too close.

Tel'anan had always been a curious person, never staying in one place, always searching for new ways that Eywa expressed herself in the world. But he usually came back after a few days of wandering, and he had been missing for a few weeks, which did not bode well for him.

Sylwanin was about to turn around to head back to Hometree when she saw the signs of a disturbance below. With a loud cry, her ikran took her down before she had decided to go down herself, forcing her to grip tightly with her legs to keep from losing her balance and she tightened her grip on Hufwe's queue as a thrill of excitement filled her. Her beloved Hufwe would do things like this from time to time as he knew how much she loved the thrill of a dive.

As they entered a clearing in the forest, Hufwe snapped his wings open and came to a sharp yet smooth landing. With a fond pat to his neck, Sylwanin disconnected her queue from the bond and slid from her saddle on his back.

With soft steps, Sylwanin moved across the ground to what had caught her attention. The ground had been disturbed, as if it had been dug up recently and then replaced. Sylwanin ran her hand over the ground, scooping up some dirt and raised it to her nose, inhaling the scents contained in the dirt.

~What is this? I smell the scent of a Na'vi in the dirt…but that can't be unless…~

The dirt dropped from her suddenly limp fingers before Sylwanin dug her strong hands into the ground and tore out handfuls of earth and threw them to the sides, quickly forming a hole in the ground. Prayers to Eywa flowed from her lips as she dug into the ground, praying that she was wrong in her assumptions.

However, as the hole approached two meters in depth, a blue shoulder was revealed and all her hopes were crushed. Further digging revealed the face of the man she had been looking for.

~Oh, Tel'anan. What happened to you?~ Sylwanin whispered as she softly caressed his face, tears leaking from her eyes. As her hand brushed some dirt from his face, she noticed that something was missing. ~No…they wouldn't!~

A feeling of rage filled her as she carefully moved his head so that she could see the back of his head and she saw the clean cut where his queue had been before. Never before had she felt hatred, but as she realized what had happened to her friend, she found herself hating the humans who had killed Tel'anan.

~This has gone on long enough! The Sky People need to learn that we are not weak!~

Sylwanin dug through the dirt, searching for something before finding it and then covered Tel'anan back up with a prayer to Eywa for his soul. She angrily brushed the tears from her face and ran back to Hufwe, connecting her queue with him and climbing onto his back in one smooth move. Within seconds Sylwanin was flying back to Hometree.

* * *

Harry woke up the next afternoon actually refreshed for once, as he hadn't had any nightmares thanks to the sleeping pills that he had taken the night before. A slight smile formed as he stretched in bed, but it faded when he realized what he had agreed to the previous night.

"Bugger."

A couple hours later, in a small room off of the link center, Harry sat on a stool with sensors placed all over his body, reading and storing every little detail about his physiology. As it had been explained to him, they needed to calibrate the unit to his body in every way in order to get the best link possible.

"Ok, Harry, stay completely still for two minutes and then raise your left arm," Max said as he stared at a data pad.

Harry barely resisted the urge to sigh, as he had learned not to do that after being chastised twice for ruining the tests that had been running when he sighed. They had been running these test for nearly two hours and he was extremely bored and had started to question his sanity for agreeing to help.

"Alright, now the right arm."

"Max, what is the point of all this?" Harry asked as he lowered his left arm and raised his right arm.

"Well, seeing as we have so few Avatar drivers, we figure that by customizing each link unit to the person that uses it the most would increase efficiency with the link," Max replied absently as he moved the data from his pad over to the mainframe. "For example, you prefer unit seven, so that's the one we'll eventually outfit with the changes we'll be making to the systems. At first it will be just little changes, but if things work out, we'll see about making a couple bigger changes and see what happens."

"Sure, Max, whatever you say."

"Alright, Harry, stand and then sit ten times."

This time Harry couldn't suppress a sigh as he continued with the tests, wishing that he could leave as he did during his first time in his Avatar. After another couple hours of tedious tests, Max released Harry so that they could go over the data they had collected. Harry left the room with a shudder as he saw the wide grin on Max's face, as if he was planning more tests for Harry to go through.

As light streamed in through a window, Harry winced as he realized that they had worked through the night with all the tests that they had done. As he headed back towards his quarters to get some sleep, an arm hooked around his shoulders and turned him around to face the link center again.

"You can sleep later, Harry. You've got school to teach," Grace said with a smirk at his bewildered look.

"What?"

"Well, I've finally got the kids used to you, so I'm gonna take Johnson and Nichols out to do some research that I've been putting off. You're on your own today, kid."

Harry groaned as Grace dragged him back to the link center and shoved him in the general direction of his link unit. "You are far too bloody perky, Grace."

"Stop whining and get inside, Potter. We're waiting on you and Trudy's already got her Samson prepped and ready to go."

Harry then saw that two of the other link units were already activated and that Grace's usual unit's clamshell top was open. He looked back at Grace, who was activating his unit, and just shook his head, silently mourning the sleep he was going to miss.

* * *

A small group of six Hunters flew through the air to one of the humans' excavation sites with Sylwanin leading the way in full war paint, the paint on her body forming markings of vengeance against her enemies.

~Strike swiftly! Show them no mercy as they have shown us no mercy!~ Sylwanin cried before leading the others in a steep dive towards a giant bulldozer. Each of the Hunters carried large stingbat bladders filled with a highly flammable liquid.

When Sylwanin had returned from Tel'anan's grave, she had told the others of his fate. A burning anger had gripped them all and many Na'vi had volunteered to go with her, but she had chosen five of Tel'anan's closest friends, men who considered each other brothers in all but blood.

As their ikran got closer to the bulldozer, each of the Na'vi Hunters disconnected and jumped from their mounts, landing on the shell of the bulldozer. Moving quickly, each of them took off and slit the bladders, spilling the liquid all over the bulldozer.

As they poured the liquid, some of the soldiers in the area noticed what they were doing and sent up an alarm. Bullets whizzed through the air by the Na'vi as the soldiers opened fire at them to try to drive them off, one bullet striking a Na'vi in the shoulder which caused him to drop his bladder.

As the Na'vi finished pouring the liquid, they called for their ikran and ran to the far side of the bulldozer were there were less soldiers while Sylwanin pulled out a small pouch that contained an ember that she had taken from Hometree's fires.

~For Tel'anan, and for all those you have killed.~ Sylwanin whispered before dropping the ember onto the liquid and running to Hufwe, who was perched on top of the camera rack waiting for her. As she reached her ikran, the ember ignited the liquid and a wall of fire erupted and moved toward them quickly.

~Fly, Hufwe!~

As her ikran started to flap his wings to fly away, Sylwanin jumped onto his back and connected her queue with his, barely holding on as he flew away from the flames as they licked his feet. Sylwanin slowly worked her way onto the saddle and steadied herself, looking back over her shoulder to see what damage they had caused.

The fire that erupted all over the bulldozer was bigger than they had planned, but the dozer hadn't been water/air tight which allowed the liquid to spread into the inner workings of the dozer which multiplied the damage. Within minutes, the fire fully engulfed the bulldozer despite the best efforts of the RDA soldiers.

~That will show them that we will no longer let them do as they please!~ One of the Hunters shouted, pumping his fist in the air.

The six Na'vi cheered as they moved to fly away, but a hail of bullets forced them to take evasive action. One of the Na'vi was a little too slow and he and his ikran were hit, the ikran took several bullets to the wings and one to the head, while the Na'vi took several slugs to the chest. Both were dead before they hit the ground. When they saw their brother fall, the remaining hunters turned around to attack the soldiers.

~No! There is nothing we can do. Fly away from them and their weapons!~ Sylwanin shouted.

After a few moments of hesitation, the group fled back over the forest, but the injured Na'vi's wound made it harder for him to fly as fast as the others and when his ikran swerved suddenly to avoid bullets, he lost his grip on his ikran's queue and fell from his saddle. As he fell, he watched his brothers fly away without him.

_At least they will survive._

When the Na'vi hit the ground, he lost consciousness, but the dense air had slowed his fall enough for him to survive. When he came to, he found a soldier's foot on his chest and a rifle pointed at his face. Around him were several other soldiers, all with their weapons pointed at him.

"Do you know what you've done, you savage? That was a multimillion dollar machine you blue-skinned freaks destroyed!"

"What of life you destroy with machine? That more important! That here first," growled out the injured Na'vi.

The soldiers looked at each other before laughing, pointing mockingly at the Na'vi. The human standing on his chest smirked at him and motioned back to the dig site.

"This is called progress, savage. You people either get with the program or we'll crush you under the wheels of advancement. You and your little friends have only delayed the inevitable," the soldier told him with a sneer. "Now, where did they go? Did they go back to your village?"

When the Na'vi didn't answer him, the soldier growled and dug his foot into the bullet wound on the Na'vi's chest. When that failed to produce much of a reaction, the soldier stuck the barrel of his rifle into the hole and moved it around, ripping a scream of pain from the Na'vi.

"Where did they go?" the soldier shouted at him.

Through the haze of pain, the Na'vi spoke in a whisper, "Safe place. No know where, Sylwanin lead. You no find."

"We'll see about that," the soldier said with a sneer as he dug his foot into the Na'vi chest some more. He looked up to see an AMP suit heading towards them.

"Sarge! Those savages took off to a place they think is safe."

"Finish with him and get your men ready to follow me. I have their damned banshees on radar and we might catch them if we hurry," the AMP suit driver said before leaving to attach his suit's rifle to the suit and get ammo.

"You heard the Sarge. Rest well in hell, you fucking savage." The soldier's grin was feral as he readied his rifle, aiming it at the Na'vi's head.

_Eywa protect you, Sylwanin, for I have failed._ The Na'vi thought, coming to terms with the fact that he was about to die. Determined to not go out with a whimper, the Na'vi spit at the soldier above him, blood from his injuries mixing with his saliva. "You no destroy Na'vi."

With a look of absolute disgust, the soldier wiped off the bloody saliva. "Let's just see about that."

With that, the soldier took aim and fired.

* * *

"Take care of yourself, Harry. We'll be back in five hours to come pick you up," Grace said as they walked up the path to the school. "I've already told the children that I won't be there, so they'll be expecting you. Good luck." Grace gave him a smile and ruffled his hair, which was still untamable, even in his Avatar.

Harry glared at her and tried to straighten his hair. Both Grace and Trudy had taken to ruffling his hair as a sign of affection and because they knew that it annoyed him, as both had seemingly adopted him as a younger brother. Giving up on his hair as a lost cause, Harry took a deep breath and let it out, along with his nervousness.

"I think I'm ready for this."

"Good, because you're on your own from here on out. I'm going to head back to the others, so good luck, Harry."

Grace gave Harry a quick hug and left him on the path as she headed the opposite direction. As Harry continued on his way, he heard Grace's last parting comment.

"Don't screw this up, Magic Man!"

With a slight groan at the nickname that Max had given him and had stuck, Harry shook his head in amusement and continued on.

Despite his reservations about stepping up and teaching the Na'vi by himself, Harry had found himself excelling and the Na'vi listening to him. The day had progressed smoothly and Harry had taken a moment to relax while the Na'vi talked amongst themselves about the assignment he had given them. He fought to suppress a smirk as he thought about the assignment. It was kind of a trick assignment as he had them studying Latin to learn about the basis for English, something that Grace had never shown them.

Harry yawned and stretched as he stood up and went over to the corner of the room where a large pitcher of water stood. As he poured himself a large glass of water, he heard the sound of several ikran flying towards the building, which meant that they were very close. Harry took a few sips of water before putting his glass down and walking over to the front entrance.

"Harry!"

Harry looked up and saw Sylwanin and several other Navi in full war paint flying toward him at full speed, though they were still around thirty meters away. Harry blinked in surprise as he could have sworn they were closer as he had heard them clearly.

"Sylwanin, what's going on? What's with the war paint?" Harry asked as Sylwanin dismounted from her ikran next to the school building and sent it to hide in the nearby trees. As he walked over to them, he could smell the acrid scent of burnt oils and plastic on them, causing him to grimace slightly.

As the others dismounted, Sylwanin rushed over to him with fear in her eyes. "Harry, we need help. You have to protect us!"

"What are you talking about? Why do I need to protect you?" Harry asked in confusion. "What the bloody hell is going on?"

Before Sylwanin could respond, Harry picked up the sounds of something large ripping through the underbrush heedless of what was in its path along with the whine of servos and metal grinding on metal. Men shouting in English also filtered through the forest, gradually growing louder as they got closer.

"What did you do?" Harry growled as he turned back to Sylwanin, having turned to face the forest to try and focus on the sounds.

~We took a stand against the Sky People,~ one of the other hunters said. Harry looked at him in shock, idly recognizing him as a Na'vi that had recently passed the trials to become a man and a hunter.

~Ahanil, what you do?~ Harry asked, a feeling of dread growing in his gut.

~We took fire and destroyed one of their machines. It will no longer threaten our home!~

Harry took a moment to make sure he hadn't misunderstood him before turning to look Sylwanin in the eyes. Her expression showed that he hadn't been lying, and Harry looked away as he realized that the sounds that were getting closer were SecOps soldiers that had followed the young hunters to the school.

"How could you come here? Don't you realize the danger you've brought to these children? Your sister?" Harry asked in a whisper as he himself started to realize just what could happen.

"I knew you could help us, Harry Potter. You are possibly the only being that can stop them."

With a crash like thunder, an AMP suit burst from the forest, followed closely by thirteen soldiers that fanned out into a loose formation. Harry looked at Sylwanin and motioned for her to go into the school before turning back to the soldiers. The AMP Suit walked forward, the sun glinting of the cockpit glass.

"Give us the girl and her friends, Potter." 

**Aren't I evil for stopping here? What's going to happen? Will Harry let them take Sylwanin or will his 'saving people' thing kick in? Stay tuned for the next chapter to find out.**

**Oh, and for the record, an ikran is the Na'vi term for the flying lizards that the humans call Banshees. As the story goes along, I'll start using more Na'vi terms in place of human terms.**


	8. Explosion!

**Ok, sorry for the long wait, but life has been crazy and I got behind in my college classes and that left me with little to no time to write, plus I rewrote this chapter about four times before I was satisfied. Hopefully things will clear up, so I'll try to get another chapter out in a week or two, but it may be longer as I may have gotten a new job and will be kept really busy.**

"English"

_Thoughts_

~Na'vi~

Explosion!

"_**Give us the girl and her friends, Potter."**_

Harry bit back a growl as he recognized Tobias' voice, schooling his face into a passive look. He took a deep breath in and then released it.

"Why would I do that? They've done nothing wrong," Harry said.

"Those savages destroyed RDA property. Now they have to pay the price," Tobias replied as his suit motioned to where Sylwanin was standing on the porch around the school. "Now stand aside so we can collect them for destruction."

At this, the Na'vi children started whispering among themselves and they tried to shield Sylwanin behind them.

"Destruction? You've got to be kidding me!" Harry had been expecting some sort of brutal punishment, but death for destroying some property was insane.

"They've got to be taught the price for defying us, Potter. Now stand aside and let us do our job," Tobias told him, starting to get angry. "If you don't, then we'll just kill everyone, including you, and burn down the school. Is that what you want?"

"You think killing this body will stop me? I'll just wake up back at base and tell them everything. When they find out you killed unarmed children…"

"They'll do nothing. Who do you think gave us the kill order? Selfridge is tired of having the Na'vi always getting in the way and so we've been told to make an example if we ever got the chance. Now, get out of the way."

Harry looked back at the school where the Na'vi children and the Hunters looked at him with their wide eyes shining with trust in him. His eyes fell on Sylwanin, her face showing the fear she felt at what she had brought upon them all, but Harry could see that she trusted him to help them.

Harry closed his eyes as he realized what he had to do and he turned back to face the soldiers before opening his eyes. The soldiers took a hesitant step backwards when they saw the latent power within his eyes as his magic bubbled to the surface.

"No."

Tobias felt a chill go down his spine when he heard that, but his arrogance and pride wouldn't let him back down.

"Fine, have it your way." Tobias then motioned to his squad. "Waste him."

Four of the soldiers glanced at each other before stepping up and leveling their guns at Harry. The click as they turned off their safeties echoed through the suddenly still and quiet schoolyard. After a few seconds of hesitation, the men fired at Harry.

Without any hesitation of his own, Harry held up his hand and a translucent silver shield sprang into existence a few feet in front of him. It formed as an arc shielding him and those directly behind him.

It was a spell he had found when training to defeat Voldemort that had proven very useful when the normal humans had gone to war against the Magical world. It blocked most spells as well as physical objects like bullets, the only downsides to it being the power needed to use it and the fact that you couldn't cast any other spells while you used it. It served its purpose well as the bullets bounced off the shield without a problem.

"Sarge, our bullets aren't hitting him!" one of the soldiers shouted as they continued to fire at Harry with no effect.

"He has a shield, he must be magical! I thought they had been wiped out long ago," Fike shouted over the sounds of gunfire. He jogged over to Tobias and got his attention. "Sir, we have to pull back! We don't have the firepower to take him out."

"Bullshit! Everyone open fire!" Tobias shouted as he unholstered his suit's rifle and started firing at Harry.

After that, everyone in the squad opened fire, forcing Harry to use more power on his shield so that nothing would get through. But one of the soldiers suddenly stopped firing at him and aimed his rifle at the Na'vi children and let out a short burst, hitting several of them.

When Harry saw this, rage flashed through him and a wave of magic burst from his shield as it exploded from his anger, sending the solders flying, including the AMP suit. A quick cutting hex later and the soldier that fired on the Na'vi no longer had a head as Harry retaliated for the first time.

"Now you've gone too far!" Harry growled as he apparated over to the wounded Na'vi, further shocking the soldiers.

A quick look showed that three Na'vi had been hurt, one of which was Sylwanin. She had taken a bullet to the abdomen and blood was flowing rapidly from the wound. The others had only taken flesh wounds to their arms. It appeared that she had shielded the two children with her own body to save them.

~Relax, I will not let you die.~ Harry waved his hand over the wound and the blood stopped flowing. ~That is just a quick fix, I will need more time than I have now to heal you completely.~

Harry stood and turned to face the soldiers, slowly walking down the steps to the porch. As he walked, he brushed a series of runes he had carved into the underside of the banister, out of sight where no one would see them, and used his magic to activate them. A large golden dome appeared around the school behind him, shielding those within from further harm.

"I was going to let you go, but now I see that none of you are worth saving." Harry walked forward a few more steps, and with every step a copy of himself split off and walked beside him until there were ten identical images of Harry standing beside him.

"You're bluffing," Tobias scoffed as his squad took a few steps back. "There's no way you can beat all of us."

"Don't think so? I think I'll save you for last, Tobias. I want you to feel the same helplessness that you made that Na'vi feel before mutilating him in the worst way!" Harry growled as all the different Harrys raised their hands.

"Open fire!" Tobais shouted as a shiver of fear shot through him. He started shooting at the group of Avatars, as did his squad.

Each time one of their bullets went through one of the Harry's, that copy vanished with a flash of light until there was no one left.

"Where is he?" one of the soldiers asked as they looked around.

"I don't see a body, so what happened to him?"

"Sarge, what's going on?"

"I…I don't know," Tobias admitted, fear creeping into his voice as he checked his sensors.

"**Do you realize now what you have gotten yourselves into? You should have left while you still had the chance, but instead you let your pride and arrogance control****your actions.**" Harry's voice came from everywhere, causing the soldiers to look all around them to try and get a glimpse of Harry.

As a few soldiers started to back away towards the tree line, a flame whip lashed out and struck them, severing their torsos from their lower bodies. The sound of their falling bodies caused the others to turn to face the tree line, missing the sound of a soft crack.

"What the fuck!"

"Let's get the hell out of here!"

At this point the men were on the verge of panic and it was all Tobias could do to keep them from running away as fast as they could.

"Toughen up, Marines! He's one man, alright. We can take him if we work together and not panic."

"**That's a nice idea. Too bad it's not true**," Harry said before reappearing high in a tree. With a flick of his wrist, he sent an explosion hex right into the middle of the troops, a turquoise flash of light speeding through the air.

"Take cover!"

As the men starting to dive out of the way, the spell hit and the resulting shockwave sent the men flying uncontrollably through the air, knocking several of them out upon landing hard on the ground. The rest made their way to their feet unsteadily.

With a grim look of determination, Harry made a gripping motion with both hands and his eyes glowed with a faint white light. The soldiers were shocked into brief silence as giant root tendrils shot from the ground and wrapped around their chests, preventing them from moving anything besides their feet, which were kicking at the roots with no effect.

"Please, don't kill us," one of the soldiers pleaded, the others echoing his plea. "We're just following orders."

"Come on, man, have mercy on us, please!" another cried as the roots started to squeeze the life out of them.

Harry sighed and relaxed his hands, causing the roots to relax and drop the soldiers onto the dirt before retreating back into the ground. With a slight crack Harry apparated down to the men who were gasping for breath and clutching their ribs.

"Do you surrender?" Harry asked as he walked up to the remaining six men, his expression firm and unyielding.

One of the marines grabbed his rifle from the ground and brought it up. "Never!" he shouted as he fired out a quick burst of bullets that barely missed Harry as he dove out of the way. The others grabbed their rifles as well and raised them to aim at Harry.

Harry rolled with his fall and shot to his feet, sending a piercing hex at the soldier as he turned mid-roll to face him, his hand sweeping through the air, sending a brown ribbon of magic at the few remaining soldiers as a dart of golden energy struck the rebellious soldier between the eyes piercing his head and killing him instantly.

As the soldiers were flung through the air by the spell, Harry took a moment to examine the situation. Seeing the dead bodies of the soldiers filled him with sadness, but a brief look at the helpless Na'vi children that were being protected by his shield reminded him of why he was fighting his own people.

_As long as these children are in danger, it's my duty to protect them._ Harry turned back to the soldiers with determination burning in his eyes. A strong gust of wind whipped through the air as Harry used his new abilities to gather the wind behind him before sending it at the remaining soldiers, blasting them through the air and into the trees. They didn't get back up.

"You're gonna pay for the men you've killed here today, Potter. I swear I'll make you suffer!" Tobias growled out as he leveled his rifle at Harry, the metal of the AMP Suit's ammo casings gleaming in the filtered light.

Harry leveled a glare at Tobias that made the man pause. "You have already made me suffer, Tobias. Ever since I saw you torture that Na'vi and leave him for dead, I have suffered."

"What are you talking about, Potter?"

"I was there in that damn clearing. I saw what you did…but I did nothing to stop you, and that has been tearing me up inside ever since. I was afraid of getting discovered, but not anymore. Anyone that harms a Na'vi child will answer to me, and you will not last the day, I swear to Eywa." Harry's eyes burned with conviction, sending a chill down Tobias' spine.

"You've really lost it, Potter. You're talking like them now. Are you gonna start running around in a loin cloth now too? You're a human, damn it, act like one!"

"You may call the Na'vi savages, but we human's are far worse than they have ever been. The Holocaust, the American's 9-11, the fucking genocide of the Magical world, all things that we have done against our own people! At least the Na'vi have honor and respect for all life, not just their own," Harry growled as his eyes began to glow. Two hands formed from the ground next to the AMP suit, extensions of Harry's will.

"You've hurt too many people with that bloody suit, Tobias. I think that it's time to neutralize it," Harry told him as he lifted his hands and made a gripping motion, the earthen hands doing the same and grabbing the arms of Tobias' AMP suit. When Harry pulled his arms in opposite directions, the earthen hands ripped the arms right off the AMP suit. The shock of the destruction of the AMP suit's arms knocked the suit's combat knife out of its sheath, bouncing off the suit's leg and several feet away.

"What the hell, Potter! Do you have any idea what these things cost?" Tobias shouted as he watched the dirt hands sink back into the ground along with his suit's arms. It was then the he noticed that his AMP suit was sinking into the ground as well. "What the fuck?"

Harry's brow was furrowed in concentration as he made the AMP suit sink into the ground and then stop once the ground level reached the cockpit. With a sigh of relief, he let the flow of magic stop and the ground hardened around the AMP suit, making it impossible for Tobias to free himself.

"You stay there until I figure out just what to do with you, you bloody wanker," Harry told him before slowly walking back to the school house, the battle having drained him more than he had expected. Once he reached the shield, Harry used his magic to take control of a root near the surface and used it to deactivate the shield, as it could only be done from inside the shield.

A sudden crashing noise to his left got Harry's attention, and when he looked to see what caused it, he saw the cockpit windshield lying on the ground next to some bushes and a large tree root. A scream of anger from behind him caused Harry to turn around just in time for Tobias to barrel into him and send him to the ground. Tobias had ejected the windshield in order to get out of his ruined AMP suit and grabbed his suit's combat knife from the ground, though it was large enough to be a sword.

"Die you traitor!" Tobias yelled as he raised his suit's combat knife, preparing to stab it into Harry's chest. His face was twisted with hatred behind his breathing mask.

_**Thwap! Thwap! Thunk!**_

Three arrows slammed into Tobias' chest, the final one going straight through his heart. He dropped his dagger and clutched one of the arrows in a vain attempt to pull it out. With a last gasp of breath through his mask, he slumped to the ground next to Harry.

Harry pushed himself to his feet and looked down at the body of Tobias and then over his shoulder to the school where he saw two of the hunters standing with their bows in hand along with Neytiri, who was holding her sister's bow, her arm still poised from releasing her arrow.

With a weary sigh at the pointless loss of life, Harry walked up the steps to the school porch and knelt next to Sylwanin. Her skin had lightened a little from the shock of the bullet wounds and loss of blood.

~Relax, this will feel strange.~ Harry said as he hovered his hand over Sylwanin's abdomen. He closed his eyes in concentration and let his magic flow through him, channeling his magic into Sylwanin to heal her. His hand glowed with a faint white light and tendrils of magic extended from his hand and lowered down to the bullet holes.

Sylwanin's eyes widened and she let out a loud gasp as she felt her wounds heal, the bullets slowly being pushed out of her body until they rested on top of her skin and then rolled off her body. The bullet holes in her abdomen started to close until all there was left were faint pink marks, and then those faded away, leaving unblemished skin behind.

Sylwanin turned her head and looked at Harry with wonder. ~You saved me.~

Harry gave her a slight smile, but when he looked out at the bodies of the soldiers his face hardened. ~But at what cost? This did not need to happen. They did not need to die. ~ Harry said softly before walking out to check the bodies to see if any still lived. As he turned his back, he missed Sylwanin's look of shame as she saw for the first time what Harry had done to his own people, what she had forced him to do by her actions.

_By Eywa, I had forgotten that he is one of them. I had begun to think of him as one of The People._ Sylwanin dropped her head in shame as she fought back tears. All life was to be preserved and cherished, yet she had put him in a situation that forced him to kill his own brothers.

* * *

Harry dropped the body of a slain soldier onto a small pile of other bodies, wiping his brow of the sweat that had formed.

"Why? Why did they have to attack?" Harry muttered as he looked at the pile and then around to see if he missed anyone else. Off to the side of the clearing were three soldiers who were bound and gagged. They had only been knocked out and not killed during the fight. "Why couldn't they just leave? I'll never understand…"

Harry let out a sad sigh as he gave one more look around before facing the pile of dead bodies piled around the partially buried AMP suit. Harry closed his eyes and extended his magic into the ground, slowly raising his hands from his sides up to chest level with his palms facing upwards. A gasp came from the watching Na'vi as the ground swelled up and then a dome of dirt rose up over the pile until it was fully covered by the dirt as Harry twisted his hand so that his palms faced the ground.

With a downward thrust of his hands, the earth dome sank down into the ground, swallowing the soldiers and taking them deep into the ground. As the ground returned to a level state, looking as if nothing had happened, Harry dropped to a knee in exhaustion and emptied the contents of his stomach. A cool hand on his shoulders brought his attention back to the present.

"Thank you, Harry Potter, thank you for protecting us."

Harry brushed the hand away and stood, leveling a glare at Sylwanin as he turned to face her.

"This didn't need to happen. They didn't have to die, not like this," He hissed softly. "Their blood is on your hands, Sylwanin te Tskaha Mo'at'ite." Harry stepped closer to her so that only a few inches separated them, his eyes a mixture of golden amber and emerald green, burning with latent power.

"You have forced me to become a killer again, and I will never forget that. I killed those soldiers to protect the children, not you." Harry's ears perked up when he heard a soft groan and turned to walk over to where he heard the sound, leaving Sylwanin standing there with her mouth hanging open in shock.

Harry walked over to where he had tied up the soldiers and found Private Fike coming to, moaning in pain. As he approached, Fike open his eyes and looked up and when he saw Harry coming towards him, he tried to move away but couldn't.

"Get away from me, you monster!"

"Well now, that hurts," Harry said sarcastically. "That really stings coming from a child killer like you." Harry grabbed Fike around the throat and lifted him off the ground, with Fike straining to get free from his bonds.

"Please…don't kill me," Fike pleaded as he stopped struggling.

"Don't worry, Sean. I'm not going to kill you. Out of all those bastards out there, you were the only one who protested what Tobias did…but you didn't do anything to stop it either."

"What…what could I..have done?"Fike gasped out as Harry's grip tightened a little before relaxing, though he still held him easily in the air. "I'm just a Private, I didn't have the authority to stop him!"

"True, but you could have reported him afterwards, but you didn't. However, I won't let you or the others report what you saw here today," Harry told him as the glow in his eyes brightened as he looked into Fike's eyes. He entered the man's mind with ease and sifted through the memories of the day's events until he found what he was looking for.

"So, everyone that saw the identities of the Na'vi that destroyed the bulldozer is now dead, except for you and the others. That makes things simpler," Harry said as he pulled out of Fike's mind. He held up his free hand and extended his index finger, the tip of his finger glowing a soft white as he placed it between Fike's eyes.

A few seconds later Harry dropped Fike and used his magic to cause injuries to Fike that looked like they had been caused by an animal or by running through thick underbrush. He repeated the process with the others and then vanished their bonds. A quick wave of his hand brought them all back to consciousness.

"What are you doing out here?" Harry asked, using his occlumancy to hide his real emotions and pretend to be concerned. "Why are you guys out here by yourselves?"

"What? I don't… the Thanator!" Fike exclaimed as the memories Harry implanted came to the surface. He struggled to his feet, helping the other two do the same. "We have to go back for the others!"

"Slow down, Fike. What are you talking about? What Thanator?"

"We were following some Na'vi that attacked a dozer, but we were ambushed by a fucking huge Thantor," one of the other soldiers told him.

"We, uh, made a strategic retreat, but we got split up from the others. The Thanator followed us for a bit, but I think it must have gone after the others," Fike said as he clutched his side, where a large gash ran across his ribs.

"Relax, guys, you're safe now. I'll see about sending some of the hunters here to see what happened to the others." Harry then turned and walked back to the school. He knelt down next to a little Na'vi girl. ~Will you look after them for me? They will not harm you now.~ The little girl nodded hesitantly before giving Harry a quick hug and walking over to the soldiers.

Harry sighed softly as he stood and walked over to the hunters that had helped protect him. ~I need you to go into the trees and stay there for some time so that the warriors think you are looking for the others.~

Two of the hunters shared a look before turning back to Harry and nodded. ~We will do as you ask, Teacher.~

~Ewya be with you,~ Harry said as he touched his forehead with his right hand and then brought his hand down to his side. The hunters returned the gesture and then ran soundlessly into the tree line, disappearing into the shadows of the forest. Harry looked over at where Fike and the other soldiers were sitting, but he looked away when they gave him grateful looks, unable to keep his guilt under control.

"You are…unhappy?" Neytiri said from next to him, startling him as he hadn't sensed her approach.

"You could say that. I don't regret protecting you and the others, I just wish that I didn't have to pay such a high price for it," Harry told her softly. When he saw a look of confusion on her face, he explained further. "Imagine having to fight against your brothers and sisters, having to kill Tsu'tey or Ninet to protect others. Do you think you could do that and remain the same?"

Neytiri opened her mouth to speak, but changed her mind and closed it as she thought about what he had said. Her childish mind was having a hard time wrapping around the thought of fighting against those she had grown up with and considered brothers and sisters. She played with her braids absently as she thought about what her teacher had done.

"You not stay same, no. Life is life, to take away is bad."

"Very good Neytiri. You are very wise for such a young one," Harry said with a slight smile. "However, sometimes you have to make the choice between what is right and what is easy. Do you understand?"

Neytiri worried her bottom lip as she thought hard about what Harry said, not used to thinking about these sorts of things. Moral and spiritual issues were her sister and mother's area. She ran over Harry's words in her head, trying to make sense of them and hoping that she understood them properly as she didn't want to disappoint her teacher.

"I think maybe some choices seem easy but they wrong, but other choice hard but right. You no need to fight, but you did. That not easy choice to make." Neytiri gave Harry a hopeful look, hoping she was right.

Harry's mouth stretched into a tired smile as he patted Neytiri on the head, messing with her hair before heading over to the injured Na'vi children to heal them as well, missing Neytiri's beaming smile at the silent praise from Harry.

* * *

**AN: **So, I've wrapped things up with Tobias, but there is more trouble coming for Harry. Stay tuned!


End file.
